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Comment by LegitShady | Hacker News Reader

understanding stablecoins is really simple.

"how do i convert crypto assets into USD without triggering a taxable event?"

the answer was create a stablecoin where you for sure have $1 for each coin so you can always exchange your crypto for dollars.

the problem is all these shady crypto finance people are busy making money off of stablecoins and hoping nobody catches them without enough cash on hand since they invested the USD into assets instead of just holding cash, or when the value went up they minted more stablecoin to sell off and now that the price of the stablecoin is down they don't have the ability to cover their liabilities.

The basic idea to protect against taxes, the extended idea is to enrich every grifter around.

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> "how do i convert crypto assets into USD without triggering a taxable event?"

You don’t: “Taxable gain or loss may result from transactions including, but not limited to: [...] Exchange or trade of one digital asset for another digital asset.” [0]

You can't hack around taxable events by avoiding exchange into fiat.

[0] https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/freq...

but you're trading $100 worth of Crypto A into $100 worth of USDT or whatever other 'stablecoin' ostensibly backed dollar for dollar with USD, thus there are no gains but you still ostensibly have 'converted' Crypto A to the closest thing you can convert it to that isn't actual USD.

That's the purpose. If you sell a crypto for USD you may get taxed. If you convert it to equal amounts of a different crypto there are no gains and no tax.

> but you're trading $100 worth of Crypto A into $100 worth of USDT or whatever other 'stablecoin' ostensibly backed dollar for dollar with USD, thus there are no gains.

If your basis (purchase) value—irrespective of the current value—of Crypto A is $100, sure. But that would be the same if you converted into actual USD.

But if you actually had gains on Crypto A, say the purchase price was $50 and you sold for $100 worth of USDT, you would have a $50 taxable gain.

“A16. [...] If you exchange virtual currency held as a capital asset for other property, including for goods or for another virtual currency, you will recognize a capital gain or loss. [...]

“A17. Your gain or loss is the difference between the fair market value of the property you received and your adjusted basis in the virtual currency exchanged. [...]” [0]

> If you sell a crypto for USD you may get taxed. If you convert it to equal amounts of a different crypto there are no gains and no tax.

No, you will owe taxes in exactly the same situations as you would if you exchanged the crypto for USD: if the value of what you sold it for exceeds the basis (not current) value of what you sold.

Now, its possible that you can find a crypto exchange that doesn’t deal in US currency or with US banks and is less likely to report information to the IRS, so that trading into stablecoins or other crypto helps you evade taxes that are legally due. But it is not a hack around actually having a taxable event. (In fact, it potentially, if the stablecoin isn’t perfectly stable, makes the purchase with the stablecoin as well as the sale into it a taxable event, which would not be the case with actual USD.)

[0] https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/freq...

If I own a house in the clear and make a private transaction to trade my house for someone else's boat, I still own capital gains on the difference between what I bought the house for and what the boat is valued at. So if I bought the house for $250k and I wind up with a boat valued at $1M then I owe taxes on $750k in capital gains.

There's no "if it doesn't touch USD it doesn't trigger taxes" law because that would be instantly gamed and exploited.

When you sell stock A and buy stock B, if you had capital gains on stock A, it is a taxable event.

Crypto is the same.

Why do you think converting from BTC to USDT is not a taxable event?

Your stock example is not what was described though.

You're not selling Bitcoin and then buying USDT. You're buying USDT with Bitcoin.

With your stock example, you can't buy shares of Apple stock using your Google stock. It has to go to fiat first which is a taxable event.

And swapping BTC for USDT still a taxable event. Just as if I bartered my Apple stock for some Google stock of yours: for both of us, there's a capital gain or loss, and it's a taxable event. You don't have to go through actual cash money for it to be a taxable event.

https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-utl/OC-Barteringandtrading-eacht...

Your interpretation of the law was potentially correct before the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (this was debated but was never taken to court) but is now not correct and crypto-crypto swaps are taxable and you use the dollar value as reference price. This may not be the case in other countries.

When you sold stock A, you got dollars for it.

But when each Velodyne Lidar share is exchanged for 0.8204 shares of Ouster (in the near future), it won't be a taxable event.

The point of stablecoins is having an USD equivalent currency that isn't subject to US financial regulations.

As said by sibling, trading crypto for crypto is still a taxable event in a lot of jurisdictions.

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