Wow. Come on, people, spare me your ChatGPT responses.
I guess I was people for help, but then again, everyone is in him or her or their (or otherwise) for help.
Thanks for nothing.
You have to accept the obvious, if your government decides to tax you for income earned then you have little choice but pay it because they always win, if you don't, then you're breaking the law and you know the implications of that. So to be on the safe side of the law, give you government what belongs to it and have your peace, so better to remit tax on eth staking reward as demanded by them. Governments especially the US have been trying to regulate every crypto transactions, so it's no surprising that they'll unjustly go way back to demand taxations.
Indeed, this seems to be the case. If Coinbase issues a 1099-MISC form "earned" money in US dollars, who am I to argue (or even if I have any means at all to do so)? That's despite the gains not being realized in any way, shape, or form.
Could you go absolutely broke this way? Say, ETH is pumped up one instant to $1B and you get your 0.1% staking reward to the tune of $10M USD. Lucky you!
Except ETH craps down back to its usual pricing of $3K or so. Nonetheless, you gained $10M in terms of IRS taxable income. Just for that one instant.
So you better have a real good checking account of $3M or so in order to give the government what it rightfully deserves from you. Right?