this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2024
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Privacy
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We're back to "privacy is a good thing even if it enables 'criminals'"? Yesterday there was rather a lot of negativity towards GNU Taler and other means of transferring money privately because it enabled tax evasion and such.
Gnu taler doesn't enable tax evasion if I am not mistaken. Vendors income is public I think.
"Enable tax evasion" = "Not let the government have 100% viewability of every financial transaction you ever made"? You mean, like cash, a system of payment we have used for over 100 years? We should get rid of that because it "enables tax evasion"?
No thanks, I'd rather live in a world where I can give my friend $5 for buy me some snacks at the store without the government having to get involved. I'd rather not have, at a time when we are experiencing democratic backsliding, my least favorite political party, who happens to be in charge at the moment, be able to see the entirety of the inflows and outflows of the resistance organizations fighting their fascist policies. I'd rather be able to get an abortion and not wonder if my bank is going to snitch on me.
You know who really evades taxes? Those rich fucks who lobby and pay off (or are!) politicians to give them tax loopholes. Or the people in the panama papers. But those aren't the tax evaders we're talking about, now are they? Because they'll never be held accountable to these laws, even though they were doxed publicly as violating them.
These kinds of financial surveillance powers will only be used against plebs, dissidents, and people who the people in power don't like.
How does you comment relate to my post?
You are saying Taler is good because it "doesn't enable tax evasion". I am saying that's a bad metric.
That's explicitly not the case with gnu taler though.
Edit: I checked their website https://taler.net/en/features.html and I don't even know if sending person to person is possible. So you might have a point. I would never advocate to get rid of cash though, cash is good. Maybe in a distant future once we really have a digital equivalent working reliably.
From their FAQ: "Taler supports push and pull payments between wallets (also known as peer-to-peer payments). While the payment appears to be directly between wallets, technically the operation is intermediated by the payment service provider which will typically be legally required to identify the recipient of the funds before allowing the transaction to complete. "
I made a post about all the problems w Taler here if you're interested https://lemmy.ml/post/17733761