Will Cryptocurrencies be the death of direct taxation?

There is a saying that there are only two certain things in life - death and taxes. The former is inevitable but what about the latter? Taxes have been around from the dawn of civilisation as we know it - there are various references in many ancient texts including the bible and it is well documented that taxes were well established ways of raising money in ancient cultures of Egypt, China and India.

What does vary between civilisations is how they went about taxing their citizens, for instance the Greeks didn't have any taxes on income! Indeed for large public projects the money was raised through the philanthropy of the wealthy who benefited from the prestige, honour and sense that they were doing something good for their fellow man rather than being forced into doing so by the strong arm of the law or a dictatorial ruler. The ordinary citizen of course benefited from the new bridge, temple or civic festival such as an ancient Olympic Games! Aristotle himself was said to have given away vast sums of money.

Due to encryption and the blockchain, cryptocurrencies will make it increasingly harder for modern governments to keep track of their citizens' incomes - after all, the reason why they love fiat currencies so much is their ability to control them and in doing so their people!

When cryptocurrencies become increasingly adopted by the masses, governments may have to rely more and more on either indirect taxation or maybe society will once again turn to the generosity of those prepared to engage in philanthropy such as Bill and Melinda Gates, George Soros, Mark Zuckerberg, Warren Buffet and JK Rowling.

Steemit itself is already allowing many good people to raise money for a myriad of worthy causes in ways we wouldn't have imagined possible not long ago...