This upcoming tax season will be the first time many Bitcoin users take a crack paying taxes on their digital currency purchases., Microsoft and others started accepting it as a payment method.The IRS said in 2014 that Bitcoin is a property, not a currency.So, prepare to carefully pore over every single item you bought last year with bitcoins.First, the basic rule: The government views Bitcoin kind of like company stock.If it increases in value and you sell it, you experience a "gain" -- like a capital gain -- and must report it as income.Now for reality: The value of a bitcoin steadily slid last year by 58%.It started the year at $748 per bitcoin and ended at $317.It performed worse than the Russian ruble.So you likely didn't experience any gains, and you don't owe taxes.Let's say you're the average person who dipped toes into Bitcoin, maybe buying a single bitcoin and spending some of it on a few items throughout the year.You'll have to compare the value of the original bitcoin with the value of the portion you spent.

For example, let's say you bought 0.1 BTC for $60 in July and the value fell to half in October.That's when you spent it at a high-tech bar.That portion was then worth $30.bitcoin edinburghYou experienced a $30 loss.bitcoin ngan hang nha nu?cNow repeat that over and over again.bitcoin schweiz kaufenThis gets wildly confusing if you acquired Bitcoin several times, explained New York tax lawyer Tyler S. Robbins.litecoin hash rate statsIf you just kept adding bitcoins to your wallet, it's like pouring water into a glass.litecoin mining 2014How do you determine an "original value?"bitcoin ted talk

They're all mixed in together."This is extremely burdensome -- a lot of headache for ridiculously small dollar amounts," said Omri Y. Marian, who teaches law at the University of Florida.Ironically, it'll be worst for those who used Bitcoin most trivially.The accounting is actually easier for those who bought large amounts as a risky investment and sold it in a few, large chunks.Some accountants say Bitcoin users can claim the drop in the digital currency's value as a capital loss up to $3,000.This lowers your overall income, shrinking how much you owe in taxes.Luckily, Bitcoin keeps a perfect, public record of transactions.And most Bitcoin wallet software programs, like Blockchain.info, offer simple ways to export your data into a spreadsheet.There's even an automated Bitcoin calculator, called LibraTax, that's free as long as you're counting 500 or fewer transactions.You just plug in your wallet IDs.It took me only 10 minutes calculate my 2014 bitcoin purchases.In the rare case you did experience a gain and owe taxes, your accountant will probably charge you an extra $25 to $100 for that one line item, according to W. Hunter Robinson, an accountant in Memphis, Tenn.

You'll have to use an additional tax form, called an 8949.This is why many people thought the IRS made a mistake by not classifying Bitcoin as a currency.If it did, that would let you ignore most price fluctuations, similar to spending euros or yen while on vacation.In the end, most people are likely to just ignore these rules and not report a thing, according to Steve Rosenthal, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute."The rules are too complicated, and they result in a bizarre answer," he said.Jose Pagliery is the author of Bitcoin - And the Future of Money (Triumph Books, Chicago).Story highlightsJoseph Stiglitz: Oxfam report reveals that eight men have as much wealth as half the world; this is a moral issueHe says corporations must fix this: pay taxes; lift workers with better wages; invest in companies, not just shareholder gainsJoseph E. Stiglitz, Nobel Prize laureate in economics, is an economist and professor at Columbia University.The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.The outcomes of the election in the US and the result of the referendum on Britain's membership in the European Union suggest that a rebellion may already be brewing.

And this is understandable: in the US, the average income of the bottom 90% has stagnated for nearly a quarter of a century.According to the National Center for Health Statistics, average life expectancy declined last year for the first time in more than two decades.In recent years, Oxfam has been keeping tabs on the growth in global inequality.In 2014, the anti-poverty organization painted a vivid image of a bus with the world's 85 richest people -- many of whom are in attendance at Davos, as it happens -- who had as much wealth as the bottom half of the world's population.Each year since, that bus has been shrinking.This year, Oxfam revealed that such a large form of transport was no longer needed: a minivan with just eight men (and they are all men) would do.They have as much wealth as the bottom 3.6 billion people.JUST WATCHEDReplayMore Videos ...MUST WATCH It begins with a simple idea: pay your taxes.This is the first element of corporate responsibility.Don't resort to shifting taxes to lower tax jurisdictions.

Apple may feel that it has been unfairly singled out on this score; it only did a slightly better job at tax avoidance than others.It's shameful when the president-elect of a country appears to boast that he hasn't paid certain taxes for nearly two decades -- suggesting that smart people don't -- or when a company pays .005% of its profits in taxes, as Apple did.It's not smart: it's immoral.Africa alone loses $14 billion in tax revenues due to the super-rich using tax havens, Oxfam has calculated, noting this would be enough to pay for health care that could save the lives of 4 million children and to employ enough teachers to get every African child into school.JUST WATCHEDReplayMore Videos ...MUST WATCH A second idea is equally simple: Treat your workers decently.A full-time worker shouldn't be living in poverty.In Scotland, 31% of households where one adult works full time are still in poverty.Top executives in large US corporations now take home around 300 times what the same corporation's median worker receives.

That's far more than in other countries or at other times -- and the disparity can't be explained simply by productivity differentials.In many cases, corporate CEOs take home so much simply because they can -- doing so at the expense not only of their workers but of the long-term growth of the company.Henry Ford understood the idea about good pay, but his wisdom seems to have been lost on some of today's corporate executives.A third idea is equally simple but seems increasingly radical: Invest in the future of the company, in your employees, in your technology and in capital.Without such investment, there won't be jobs in the future and inequality will only grow.Yet today, rather than investing profits back into the company, an ever-greater proportion is siphoned off to shareholders.In the UK, for example, 10% of profits were returned to shareholders in 1970; this figure is now 70%.JUST WATCHEDReplayMore Videos ...MUST WATCH Historically, banks (and the financial sector) performed the important function of raising money from the household sector, to be used by the corporate sector to build factories and create jobs.