Playing the devil advocate right now, but legally speaking, if you would have done this on Coinbase for example, wound't you still be liable for the same taxes? Or on any exchange? Of course, buying and selling at an ATM or P2P would have given you some privacy but still from a legal point of view that would be tax evasion, right? I'm not talking about what's moral or views on it but strictly legally! So, you do it with PPBTC or withBTC at Kraken it's the same in the end, right?
I've seen so many people here saying "don't use custodial services, they will report you to IRS". Do they plan to not pay tax on their Bitcoin gains? IMO that's an extremely risky thing to do in the US, especially if we talk about big amounts - there's a very high chance that they will uncover it eventually and slap you with such a big fine on top of what you owe, that you'll regret not reporting it yourself.
Anyway, what are your thoughts on buying PPBTC ? I believe it's fully degenerate, mostly due to the fact you cannot transfer PPBTC out to your own custody.
If you're an active PayPal user and a Bitcoiner, I see no problems with converting your PayPal balance to BTC. But if you're not a PayPal user, and you want to get into Bitcoin through PayPal, this is not optimal. I think it's only good for those who'd have higher chance of losing coins in their own wallets than losing because of PayPal.