Tax Implications of Lightning Payments

So I just checked out this video: BTC007 chatting with Jack Mallers. The dude goes deep into the Lightning Network. What struck me was his point about paying in stores. If they use Lightning, you can pay directly in BTC. If not, you can turn it into cash via Visa instantly. But then he mentioned, in the US any store earning over $3k daily now has to do KYC, which feels kinda wild to me.

tax rules vary by country, right? I mean, like in Bali, they had this coffee shop that took BTC. But I'm not sure if it's still around. Last I checked, no taxes were taken. Customers just paid like always in fiat. Crazy!

Yeah, Jack was talking specifically about the US. But honestly I think every gov wants to keep an eye on payments to grab more tax. It’s messy now, but it's coming. It's all about tech and info management.

I totally agree. The IRS loves a tangled web. More complex transactions just lead to more chances to trip up on tax laws, which means fines. If you follow the rules? Good luck spending crypto without that tax headache. And let's be real, if KYC gets tighter, it's gonna be a major pain. Fingers crossed the KYC threshold stays at $3k for domestic since they're talking about dropping international to $250. That's just ridiculous.

Not an expert but I think when you’re using a Lightning channel, the transactions don't count until you close the channel, right? So all those intermediate trades wouldn’t trigger taxes. If that's true, then dealing with taxes on Lightning stuff could actually get easier.

But if you're changing the state of the channel for money or goods, that's a tricky legal spot. Gains and losses happen when you make those state changes, so IRS probably sees values on Lightning as the same as straight-up BTC. Meaning, same tax rules apply.