For what it's worth the general sentiment on UK military sites and forums is that the guy hasn't got a fucking clue what he's talking about and most seem to reckon someone's upset him or he's been passed up for promotion or something and is retaliating by writing sensationalised shite that makes the Navy look bad.
People in the Bitcoin community have a number of weird beliefs with regards to how taxation works generally, then apply these beliefs to Bitcoin, and arrive at results which are internally consistent but not indicative of the world we live in.
The US taxation system is based on taxes on self-reported income. Individuals/businesses are responsible for reporting their income accurately and honestly. Some forms of income are also reported on informational returns, which makes tax evasion regarding them more difficult. Bitcoiners appear to believe that "Bitcoin doesn't structurally generate informational returns so jackpot, no taxes ever" but there are any number of things which don't generate informational returns. You're still responsible for paying taxes; the government's main remedy if you don't is still auditing a very small percentage of returns and coming down hard on people who abusively underreported income.
Not a lawyer, but my understanding is that it is handled as a capital gains tax. So you buy some bitcoin, it fluctuates wildly over the course of a week, and you convert back to fiat. You then pay taxes on any earnings from that.
So if you bought 1 flubbercoin for 900 USD and sold it a week later for 1200 USD, you are liable for that 300 USD in gained capital.
At that point: Theoretically nothing. At that point the currency is stable and its value adjusts to very small degrees (if any) and it is no different than dave and busters money. You're taxed on your income and all you are doing is adding an extra layer of indirection before spending. And if you were paid in bitcoin, you have the same capital gains to report when you effectively translate it to fiat while buying your new Gameboy. There may be added complications similar to how foreign currencies work, but they should theoretically be negligible.
In terms of making sure you report those gains: What we see right now. Getting involved in the infrastructure to cut down on black money/money laundering.
But don't worry. I am sure The Followers of Satoshi will find a way to keep that currency volatile.
> And if you were paid in bitcoin, you have the same capital gains to report when you effectively translate it to fiat while buying your new Gameboy.
But what if you never have to translate it to a "real currency"?
Granted - bitcoin isn't anon - but let's suppose it was (or there existed a e-currency that was). If every transaction in the entire supply chain was carried out using such a currency, how would any government ever know (without inserting a MITM into the supply chain)?
An alternative thought: If you conducted all aspects of your life cash-only, how would the g-man "get you"? I suppose Al Capone could be brought up as an explanation (whatever was the reasoning there) - but there were other factors involved (they wanted him for other reasons, but tax-evasion was the easiest way - at least, according to what we've been told).
But as long as you conducted your affairs completely off-the-books, and only worked with vetted (or anonymous) others who were doing the same (so you never transacted cash with a government official or someone working for them) - how would they know?
Another thought experiment: If you conducted everything using barter (let's suppose that were possible) - would you then owe the government so many chickens or pigs as "tax"?
CmdrSprinkles is incorrect: at least in the United States, mining and other forms of receiving Bitcoins are no different in principle from receiving large quantities of other non-dollar goods or currencies that have an estimable dollar value.
The Bitcoin wiki article on this is incomplete, but informative[0].
I think that Bitcoin is like a cash. But instead of images with dead presidents, you have many 0&1 in your "wallet".
Now What happens If you sell/buy something for cash? It depends on laws in your country.
Something that has been useful for me was making the Google account with random credentials (name, age, etc.). This way, at least they're tracking a non-existent person.
In terms of their mission statement which is convince people that electric cars can be 'cool', practical and inexpensive he has succeeded much more than you are giving him and the people at Tesla credit for.
They're spaced out over miles, so presumably they'd take a wide shot of a bunch of them and check that the focus on one side of the frame to the other would be consistent.
They took a whole series of images at different focuses, then dropped it to earth and people radioed back the most in-focus setting....is how I'd do it.
Well, I'm going to assume there was no actual "computer" on board...
However, a sharply focused image has more high-frequency components than a poorly focused one, so some sort of frequency discriminator (a technology from the 1920's IIRC) could possibly suffice to check and adjust focus. Remember that we've had sophisticated servomechanisms since WW2 so the feedback theory to do this was already well known.
