I think you know this, but perhaps not all readers do: you still are actually required to pay tax on earnings in BTC - just not declaring the income is illegal (and the authorities _are_ likely to notice if you're making a large amount of it and converting it back to your home currency to spend).
i.e. - I build a fence for a farmer, and he gives me 7 goats.
What do I owe the IRS?
The IRS does not accept payment in goats. They could secure a court order requiring you to sell the goat, or allowing them to sell the goat to satisfy your tax liability (with the excess returned to you).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_of_illegal_income_in_t...
> The Internal Revenue Code is not a mechanism for enforcing other codes of law, such as criminal law. [2] A person’s taxable income will generally be subject to the same Federal income tax rules, regardless of whether the income was obtained legally or illegally.
Also, Yale Law has a PDF entitled "Taxing Income from Unlawful Activities" (1974):
http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?artic...
> When income from unlawful activities is reported, the taxpayer often supplies his name, address, and net income (usually in round figures, with such laconic labels as "miscellaneous income" or "income from various sources") and leaves the rest of the return blank.
The whole PDF is actually a very interesting historical study of the ins and outs of taxing ill-gotten gains.
I emailed the contact address for the site to complain about it.
Actually the whole story is not about taxation. Local government wants to control and supervise all people's money. For example, for each incoming payment (wire transfer) they require a piece of paper with ink seal of the sender, date, amount, and account numbers of both parties. If any of these attributes does not match bank transaction data, then you've got a fine. Every local law in this area is made in such way that local workforce is isolated from global market, underpayed, underemployed and kept politically loyal.
So, bitcoins are a like breath of fresh air here. They bypass traditional banking system, controlled by corrupt local authorities.
You also not need to read and agree to new terms of service every few months (how many people actually read them?). No need to worry you're account will be blocked, that the payment service will stop working and so on.
People keep forgetting that the overwhelming majority of all eBay payments are done using Paypal.
I opened a new account in a new country because paypal wouldn't allow me to change my address and a site wouldn't deliver to an address other than the paypal address.
Other than that I like the idea. Although, the only reason I can think of why a developer would use btcworkers rather than your USD counterparts would be for anonymity (read: avoid paying income tax). What are the other benefits to being paid in bitcoins?