IRS may soon create department to deal with growing Bitcoin currency

The Treasury Department has already established a departmental segment to regulate Bitcoin usage, and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) may not be far behind. In a Forbes piece on Bitcoin and the IRS, Bitcoin transactions may soon be taxed and regulated the same as barter is, and become treated as an income source, verses a free flowing currency.

"The IRS already gets a piece where you swap one product or service for another, as the IRS explains at its Bartering Tax Center. Soon the IRS may have a Bitcoin Center too. The Treasury unit called FinCEN, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, already has rules about Bitcoin and the IRS is likely to follow.

In the meantime, the tax rules seem pretty clear. If you provide services or sell goods for Bitcoin, you have income. If you exchange Bitcoins for cash, whether you have gain may depend on whether Bitcoin is really currency or commodity. The latter seems more likely, meaning you have gain to the extent of the appreciation in your Bitcoin. - Forbes"

In reality, the United States is attempting to regulate an electronic currency under archaic rules (Barter), without the ability to fully enforce them. Bitcoin is an electronic currency, which runs peer to peer across a global domain, not residing in a single nation or sovereign state. And while the system documents all transactions publicly, users of the currency remain anonymous, and unable to be tracked. - Read more here: http://www.examiner.com/article/irs-may-soon-create-department-to-deal-with-growing-bitcoin-currency