Re: Will people be selling after the 1st of the year for tax benefits?

I'm guessing a lot of people are waiting until after the 1st of the year to sell their coins in order to cash out and realize a profit. Cashing out after the 1st of the year allows them one whole year to find tax havens such as mortgage interest and Roth IRAs.

My understanding of tax law in the US is that, for forex (and bitcoin), you pay taxes on a marked to market basis. You calculate dollars out (or dollar value of bitcoins) minus dollars in, and pay taxes on that. It does not matter whether you "cash out" or not -- the tax is the same.

If you've been hodling since the beginning of the year and haven't done any day trading, you don't have any taxes since you haven't realized profits. I think the idea here is that some of these long term hodlers may be waiting for the beginning of the year to realize their profits so the income isn't factored into their 2013 taxes when they file them in April.

That's what I was thinking. Also another strategy is if you sold during the year and rebought. If the price drops significantly, you can resell and rebuy to offset capital losses, but with slippage that might not work at all.

No, when you rebuy there is no capital gain/loss until you sell again. If you sold up high and rebought you still need to come up with the cash to pay your taxes on the gain you realized when you sold.