SARS has no idea how much Bitcoin you have

[MrGray]

Technically you pay tax on all earnings whether it's goods or currency. If you receive room and board you're supposed to convert that to a market related Rand value and pay tax on it. Most people don't and it's hard to enforce but Sars makes sure to have rules in place that even if you live without money you need to pay tax. So even if you don't declare that 1BTC you got from somewhere you might have problems when selling it and not being able to explain how you bought it.

I was speaking more in terms of appreciation of rand value in a Bitcoin holding - i.e. you wouldn't incur tax on that until you sell to Rands.

 

[backstreetboy]

Keeping it off an exchange is much safer. And if you store your wallet key somewhere safely (in writing) you can happily erase your desktop wallet completely.

Not anymore. With a dex it's same difference.

 

[Mrlepen]

Which means if somebody pulls a Mt Gox with about 750000 bitcoins then SARS won't know **** I mean they haven't found the coins in Japan and Europe plus they more advanced then SARS

 

[_TrXtR_]

So, Luno has never given sars the information, and if it was asked for the information and not to divulge or to keep under wraps they would.

So might that mean if asked if they have ever divulged information they might say they have never done that?

 

[Bobbin]

Yes. Barter transactions are taxed and there are rules around it. Swapping cows don't tend to be a big problem because most people swapping cows tend to fall below the income tax thresholds, but in theory you need to pay tax. Bigger barter transactions ended up in court.

Interesting thanks. Though I assume cows are worth a lot

So to me that potentially says private property isn't really a thing then (Can't do with it what you wish incl. trade without any hurdles even if it involves no fiat). Or at least I wonder how this works logically/ethically. I know very little about this stuff tbh.

So if I exchange a diamond necklace for a valuable painting, in theory it'd have to be declared and taxed? What if we decide to exchange it back later? In theory we could exchange all day and lose all our money (Which was probably already taxed too when we earned it) until at some point we'd have to hand over both items to the government to cover the tax (in fiat). haha