Creating a Steem-based Business | Dapp for U.S. Tax Reporting
I recently joined a Business Plan | Contest on Steemit.. here is my 2nd entry.
The Problem:
The general consensus is that the United States requires U.S. citizens to report their cryptocurrency trades, and cryptocurrency income for annual taxes each year.
Steem users and power-users in particular, trade Steem and SBD's on a daily basis. In addition to trading Steem and SBD's, power-users earn income everyday, even if it's just .001 Steem. These transactions as it stands are nearly impossible to properly report to the IRS due to the sheer number of transactions, and the price fluctuations in Steem and SBD makes it even more difficult.
Spending Steem and SBD is also thought to be a taxable event and that includes buying @steemmonster cards with Steem or SBD's.
In order to make it easier for U.S. citizens to properly report their Steem-based transactions, it is crucial that someone like @blockbrothers develops a Dapp for U.S. tax reporting. This would enable U.S. citizens to meet their tax obligations in a seamless way and would strengthen the feasibility of interacting with the Steem blockchain.
Vision:
My vision is for @ned @steemit @blockbrothers, @exyle @aggroed or someone along those lines to create a Dapp for U.S. tax reporting that generates income in fiat for each annual report.
Mission Statement:
To make the U.S. tax reporting of Steem-based cryptocurrency transactions simple, seamless and easy for U.S. citizens.
The Plan:
Unlike @crowdfunder I don't have any usernames or domain names to secure my contribution, so I am only offering this idea to the community. Once someone creates this Dapp I'll be happy to be the first paying customer. $10 to $14.99 would be a comfortable price per annual report but I would be willing to pay more if I didn't have any other options.
A good marketing strategy would be to make the first week of every month viewable for free, then users would have to pay a flat fee for the full annual report.
Affiliate marketing and even multi-level marketing could be used to instill brand loyalty and sponsoring posts from people like @kenmelendez, @freedompoint and @quinneaker would work too.
This app can be expanded to include other charts and statistics that could be packaged with the annual report and viewable throughout the year for usernames who already paid their annual fee. I also think it's possible to get support from people like @ned and @andrarchy.
- The first concrete steps to take would be registering a premium username on @Steem and acquiring a matching domain name.
Cost:
I am not sure how much it would cost but it would at least require a software developer and a U.S. tax advisor. Spending money on marketing through sponsored posts and reaching out to @steemit would help too.
Conclusion:
With 10,000 to 50,000 active users on the Steem blockchain, @blockbrothers or someone else can rake in a serious money if they charge $10.00 to $14.99 per annual report.
This post contained some typos in its mentions that have been corrected in less than a day. Thank you for your quick edit !
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!help.The best idea I've read so far. I'm going to read your other one now.
Thank you @blockurator.
I hope @aggroed and @cryptoctopus like it too.
I also hope that someone does it since I need to report my Steem transactions to the IRS. I used the phrase 'General Consensus' since I am not a tax attorney but the Trump administration did pass a law that said cryptocurrency trades are tax events.
Unlike fiat purchases, purchasing with cryptocurrency is considered a trade in the United States so we'd need to report the capital gain or loss based on the current price of Steem/SBD each time we purchased something with Steem/SBD i.e. purchasing @steemmonster cards.
A simple app would fix everything but doing it manually ourselves would be a NIGHTMARE!