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> And if you quit your job prior to selling (i.e had ordinary income <$40,000) then the capital gains would go to 0% (seems wrong (?) and maybe you would have to pay the alternative minimum tax... not quite sure).

Not a tax advisor, but I thought capital gains counts as taxable income? So someone who sells $50k worth of BTC will pay 15% on $10k.

>but I thought capital gains counts as taxable income

It's taxed, but at a different rate compared to ordinary income.

Yes, and the rate depends on the amount of ordinary income you have (including short-term gains) and the amount of long-term capital gains. The capital gains rate is 0% under $40k (for single individuals) but ordinary income is calculated first (after deductions) and the total income determines the bracket. So if you have $40k or more in ordinary income (after deductions) then the 0% rate won't apply to any of your long-term gains. If you had $20k in ordinary income (a.d.) then the first $20k of long-term gains would be taxed at 0% and the next $400k (from $40k to $440k of total income) would be taxed at 15%, with anything beyond that taxed at 20%.

Also, if you have significant income from investments then a surcharge of 3.8% in Net Investment Income Tax may be added on top of the long-term capital gains rate for part of that income for a marginal rate of 18.8% or 23.8%.

The problem is, you can't transfer the oil to others with the click of a button for other things.

Tax evasion is very easy when you have crypto. You couldn't just sell it all at an exchange tax-free, but you can convert it into foreign currencies, goods, and services all without any oversight.

maybe taxes are bad and we should do something else

> Also, if you made a significant amount of money on any crypto, you probably held it for more then a year at which point to capital gains tax is probably at most only 15% (<$441,000 ordinary income).

Ownership of other assets tends to have legal documents of when it was purchased though. How does anyone know how long you've held it? You could prove it if it's been in the same wallet the whole time, with the transaction ID, and proof of ownership of the wallet. But what if you transferred it between wallets, and lost the first?

>How does anyone know how long you've held it?

The blockchain?

The Blockchain doesn't mandate that you hold the private key of any wallet you owned since you acquired some Bitcoin assets.

And a piece of paper doesn't mandate that you actually transacted on the date it claims you did.

all good points