Hacker News Reader

Miners are taxed at the time they are mined. This is probably consistent with diamonds.

It seems pretty backwards compared to any other sort of creation. If I build a house, my basis is how much I spent building it, not how much my neighbor's house is worth.

I don't think this has anything to do with basis. The difference is that mining the coin is considered a tax event -- so you pay tax on the mined value -- with the cost being deductible. This makes sense because the coin is liquid and can be sold in part without reducing the utility of the remainder.

That is not true of a house. It isn't as liquid and it's hard to sell part of the house to cover tax.

so if you mined gold you get taxed at the moment you caught sight of it and not when you take it to market?

And if you knew how mining pools worked it takes it on a totally different course with shelved shares, etc

Reply on news.ycombinator.com