Cryptocurrency

Paying taxes doesn’t prevent anyone from funnelling disposable income to where they feel it’s needed.

1 Like

The conspiratorial side of me makes me suspect that Bitcoin is a massive manipulation orchestrated by the financial overlords to get the masses used to the end of cash and digital only transactions, and also to drive people’s investments away from precious metals.

On the other hand, if the economies of the west are truly market economies, anyone should have the right to create a currency and not the monopoly of central banks (which in the case of the FED and BOE aren’t publicly/state owned as they would desperately want you believe)

From what I understand, blockchain is a clever technology. On a localised level where a necessary degree of trust can be established, it could be used as a convenient medium of barter.

I use cash as much as possible because I don’t want to provide the bank, which gets my income, to make money selling info on my spending habits, or telling the state insurance co how much I spend on booze.

1 Like

There are a whole bunch of ways to invest and donate tax free before funds ever become income.

Tax dodging options are limited when you pay-as-you-earn and I’m OK with that. I’m grateful for the tax funded infrastructure that we all depend on in some shape or form.

Tax dodging and Tax avoidance are not methods i subcribe to. What i’m talking about here mostly is venture capital schemes, NGO’s and Charities, all of which have Government schemes open to everyone. Business tax: Investment schemes - detailed information - GOV.UK

The Seed Scheme specifically is one of the main drivers of tax revenue creation in recent years.

You have to be very rich avoid taxes legally. It’s fucked up (not taxation, but legal tax avoidance). Seems to be a taboo subject for almost all politicians.

The proper term is tax relief, its based on the premise that investors get tax relief on their investment for a max of 5 years and the profit (if any) is not liable to any tax. Furthermore, if the company that was invested in becomes insolvent, (you wont like this bit!) the tax payer covers half of the investors losses. It was brought in to help new entrpreneurs get access to funds when the banks stopped lending as much back in 2010 ish.

When you have enough money to set up a company in an offshore tax haven so as to legally avoid taxes, it’s tax evasion. If you call it tax relief, that’s lipstick on a pig.

1 Like

For official accounting and tax purposes when dealing with venture capital schemes its called tax relief. You can keep your pig.

Sounds like you work in marketing and PR for the Cayman Islands or Guernsey, or some other haven, or some City financial advisory for rich clients. Look up the “official” euphemisms for torture used by secret services. Doesn’t stop it being torture.

lolz Theres just no need for me to get involved in anything offshore. Your barking up the wrong tree.

My barking, your barking?? We’re both barking up the wrong tree since this is supposed to be a forum about music making. :wink:

4 Likes

What is the difference between a capitalist society and a socialist one?

In a capitalist society, man exploits man. In a socialist one, it’s the other way around

the good old horseshoe theory, last ressort of everyone who fears complexity…

fyp

In reality, from a philosophical standpoint, a liberal system that aims for equality is much more complex and advanced than a socialist and centralized system imposed from outside.

edited.

I think this argument (which I have a lot of sympathy for, but can’t be arsed to go fully into) is a lot of what I see as wrong with Crypto.

Just like Socialism, Crypto (and probably more reasonably, the Blockchain in general) seems full of lofty utopian ideals, but seems to turn sour in practice, largely due to the need of us humans to constantly corrupt and destroy every good idea we come across.

I think the answer is, like you say, to encourage liberal societies to make existing structures fairer and more equal, as I don’t see trying to incorporate the Blockchain into the current mess we’re in doing much good beyond adding layers of complication for the corruption to hide behind.

3 Likes

dropping “jokes” like:

does not seem to delve very deep into complexity…

And I am not defending socialism here, but come on: Capitalism and Socialism could not be more contradictory. And just as a little reminder: Just because you did not catch up with other political theories and all the progress they had within the last decades does not mean that liberalism (aka “free” market capitalism) is the only shiny theory that works. As we can see right now it obviously only works as long as someone is exploited. This also and most aggressively is the case with cryptocurrencies…

2 Likes

I may agree with you. In fact I’m more interested in the application of the blockchain in different fields other than economics.

1 Like

Yeah, that probably frightens me even more, to be honest.

Again though, not because there’s anything inherently scary about using the Blockchain, it’s the human element that terrifies me.