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RE: Steem and Capital Gains in Ireland
That's very interesting. I was wondering about the tax implications recently. I had only considered the case where you sell your steem. At some point though, particularly if most of your wealth is tied up in steem, you would need to sell it. Unless you think Steem power will be a means of paying for most goods and services?
Steem is different to most cryptos in that it has utilitarian value even if you don't spend it. 100% of the value of Bitcoin is derived from the transfer of Bitcoin for goods and services, and it's at that moment when you make use of Bitcoin that you are exposed to CGT.
Steem Power continues to have utilitarian value just by holding it. If you want to 'cash in' and buy luxury items etc., then yes you have to sell it and you're exposed to CGT. But then, that also depends on your expectations. For example, I expect Steem to rise several orders of magnitude in price over the long run. At each one, I will only sell 1/13th (one week's power downs). At each level that's a significant amount of money for me and those power downs will be taxed. However it's never going to rise 13 orders of magnitude so I'll always have the vast majority of my SP, which won't be taxed. Even without powering down, the curation rewards on the SP are a large source of income, at only $5 it would easily replace my day job.
Good point! Thanks for the info.