Are SMTs going to be tax efficient enough for real world usage patterns?
Smart media tokens are a great idea which in my opinion can put Steem over the top as a platform. Yet one problem remains which is holding Steem back and that is the problem of tax complexity. More tokens could mean capital gains taxes depending on whether the IRS sees these tokens as separate tokens or as part of the same platform. Due to the recent removal of like kind treatment and the article in one of my previous posts about how short term capital gains tax can quickly overwhelm the ability of earners to pay (due to the fact that the capital gains may be pinned on regardless of if the crypto is spendable or could reach a bank account in a cash out scenerio, it can present a problem at least for US users.
Steem, SMTs and US Citizens
Steem and SMTs are great but for US citizens they may or may not be tax efficient. What would be the consequence if someone has hundreds of different SMTs trading back and forth on the platform connected to their account? What if they are all on external exchanges with separate prices as well? What if some are actual securities as well? This lack of tax efficiency in my opinion is one of the major problems in crypto preventing mass adoption. Since Steem is designed for mass adoption and is ultra transparent this has to be solved (particularly by the same developers promoting the transparency). If we must live in a glass house with unlimited transparency then developers who promote this (and witnesses) must also promote at a minimum a voluntary compliance capability.
A possible solution
A possible solution to the capital gains problem is to simply stop using cryptocurrency directly for payments. How would this solution work? Instead of using cryptocurrency directly where Alice sends Bob Steem Dollars as a means of paying for products and services the solution could be to use Steem Dollars as collateral for a loan which can be used to pay in real dollars. In this way there is no need to care about the price of Steem Dollars and by the design we know Steem Dollars tend to be around a dollar so this would allow for paying back the loan.
A Steem account which has for example $100,000 Steem Dollars could in theory or should be able to in theory take out a loan in real dollars from a bank to pay in real dollars. Companies do stuff like this (Apple does something similar). This is also the strategy behind SALT. A possible solution for Steem is to simply take the blueprint from SALT and apply it to the Steem ecosystem.