Former congressman Ron Paul: Bitcoin is money and should be taxed the same

Former presidential candidate and congressman Ron Paul has renewed calls for Bitcoin to be legalized as money and not taxed.

Paul is a staunch libertarian and author of the Bitcoiner favorite “End the Fed,” who has advocated for the legalization of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in the past. The former congressman has also regularly taken aim against the Federal Reserve for its unchecked money printing since the pandemic began.

Ahead of his appearance at the Miami Bitcoin conference on June 3, the 85 year-old spoke with streaming financial news provider Kitco News and noted that his goal is to “help legalize the competition, and then I think the people will sort it out. Freedom of choice will sort it out.”

The former congressman described gold and Bitcoin as money and “competition” to the U.S. Dollar — and highlighted that a major reason investors seek out such alternative forms of money is to hedge against the declining value of the U.S dollar.

Paul believes that for this reason, “alternate forms of money” should be taxed the same as fiat currency:

"Right now, if you buy and sell gold, you get it taxed, they can do that. If you make a profit in Bitcoin, you read stories about people being taxed on it. You can't tax money, you don't tax it. If you bought a dollar a year ago and it went down 10%, you can't take a loss because your dollar lost value."

Paul believes that U.S. regulatory bodies are moving to regulate and further tax Bitcoin because it's competing with the U.S. dollar, and noted that governments throughout history have been “notoriously very eager to have control of the money,” and predicted they “will never give up control.”

“But I would apply that same concern to gold, because you know, what was the first thing Roosevelt did in 1933? He immediately took all the gold from the people,” he said.

When asked about the subject matter for his address at the Miami Bitcoin conference, Paul emphasized that he won’t necessarily be speaking on the technical significance of blockchain technology, or from a pro-Bitcoin perspective, but more from the angle of letting the market decide and freedom of choice:

“I won't try to explain exactly technically whether it's good, bad, or indifferent. I will argue more the case for the legalization of freedom of choice and the. People should make decisions and not the government.”