This is why non-crazy tax law usually doesn't tax things until you actually realize a cash gain. Thus, you would only owe tax on your CS:GO skins if you started selling them for profit and made money money, annually, than the minimum taxable level. You would also be open to a lot of deductions, and could form an LLC to pay yourself hourly for the work and deduct that too.
In other words, while it might be crappy, it would be a whole lot less crappy than this insanity.
Yeah this makes the most sense I think. The problem is that if everyone accepts crypto then a lot of people simply wont go back to using cash. And an even larger number of people probably wont even have bank accounts anyway.
But what do the lawyers and tax professionals say? Do they say we owe taxes on our CS:GO skins? I mean I don't know how to interpret the law. Is the IRS going to crack down on gamers?
Yes, we do owe money on CS skins and WoW Gold, if we allow them to change the tax law to tax us at the point of non-monetary gain. If we allow Steem to be taxed, before we actually make a cash gain on it, then that exact same logic will justify jailing anyone who receives anything that is convertible via the free market to money (so, every item in the history of existence) and does not voluntarily pay about 35% self-employment taxes. That will include every online game's currency in history, and any other salable items.
I bet even Reddit Karma has a price you can purchase it for for astro-turfing purposes. That would make every "I can haz cheezburger" post an unrecorded taxable gain.
That's the law you are legitimizing when you pay taxes when you receive Steem.