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I offer you unlimited free food for lunch.
You eat 2 plates instead of 1 plate.
You are arrested for abusing free food policy.
This is true, coal miners here, not only the direct power plant workers as well as power company workers in all places had free power within some limits. I do not know if it still applies, but it used to. That is/was a job perk, included in their employment contracts, perfectly legal.
To answer OP, I would if power was free. However, to mine at a decent amount (meaning being worth the trouble), you need a farm of rigs. The initial investment is going to be pretty big because the computers themselves aren't going to be free.
And, if you have a farm going, despite of power being free, you might get caught regardless.
Nope, just income tax for the car, everything else was billed directly on the company account. I agree it's a benefit in kind which should be taxed if you'd follow the letter of the law. As should my fibre line and brand new phone.
Point is, lots of people benefit from infrastructure, goods, services etc provided by their employer. As longs as that's agreed upon there's nothing wrong with that imho so who are we to judge about the OPs situation?
Like @clouvider said, it's a EU thing but we also enjoy a lot of non taxable benefits as there's a gray area. It's just how things work in reality.
I'm not familiar with every EU country's laws, but that doesn't make it not 'the UK way'.
In Lithuania, everyone I know who works for someone else gets a shit ton of work benefits that go untaxed. If legally they are taxable, then it's not enforced. Everyone I know gets a car and/of fuel allowance. It's common to have other perks too. This is not done in secret. This is totally open and everyone knows it. So something tells me it's not quite the same as the UK.
Well, you EU guys deserve some non-taxable benefits considering how much tax you guys pay.
lol
Wait for it, it will catch up ;-).
Wow !! It felt like I am on twitter!! Just like the Hindu Muslim communal war happening on twitter where people are trolling each other for some govt. rule like BanOnDiwaliCrackers or someone saying "Diwali Mubarak"
???
The level of taxation within EU varies widely, some countries have very low rates (fixed across the spectrum, from income, rent, agricultural to corporate tax) such as 10% in Bulgaria, 16% in Romania, etc.
There are other taxes, mostly on consumption, such as on fuel and the infamous VAT which applies to almost everything, everywhere.
However, property is taxed very little, for example, I pay less than 800 Lei a year (a bit less than 200 Eur) for 1 house and two apartments with more than 10 rooms in total in very affluent areas worth some 1 mil Eur+ current prices, while the land, if not in a village or town (you can build on it) is not taxed at all unless you grow something and pay some fixed sums according to how much the state thinks you will make out of it (16% of that).
There is virtually no inheritance tax (if you do the papers within 2 years since the death, tax is 0). I am not very familiar with the US model of taxation, but, from what i know, using a tax revenue to gdp ratio, US has higher taxes overall than most EU countries:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_revenue_to_GDP_ratio
US about 40%, romania about 28, same as bulgaria, Ireland, 30, poland 34, UK about 35, others are not too far north of US, like Italy, 43%, Iceland-nordic model, 40, netherlands and slovenia, almost identical to US, and there are also countries like Sweden which are indeed way higher at 50% or Finland at 54+, but even Spain is below US some 2 percentage points.
So, I would say that, in average, the EU (not included non-eu europeans countries at all) the taxation levels are on par with US ones, just the model is kinda different and tehre are large differences between individual countries.
If i had access to free unlimited power i'd start a marihuana farm, much more profitable
Tax may be relatively high in Europe, but cost of living is generally low (outside of the major cities). Sure, London is expensive, but Nottingham and Lincoln are cheap as chips! Okay, I can't speak for the whole of Europe, but compared to HK (where taxes are very low), living cost is considerably less in Europe. Even if you compare the major cities to Hong Kong, HK is generally more expensive on the basic living cost side of things (i.e. housing and food).
Generally speaking, I would say Europeans enjoy a much higher standard of living than your typical HKer, with people generally having more spending money, even after you include high income taxes AND VAT.
Unless you're making like EUR 200,000+ /yr, generally you're better off in Europe compared to HK (in terms of life style). Of course you can also live cheaply in HK, but you would have to sacrifice quality of life in order to do so. Moderatly paid expats can suck it up for a few years and save money and move back to their home countries to buy property on the cheap (relatively speaking). Locals would have no such luxury as they generally can't leave (at least not easily).
@jvnadr I literally have 1600 songs on iTunes. Don’t call me a pirate.
Well thats out of context
And please dont make this religious
If i was a moderator i would have removed your comment right away :-(
There are significant cultural differences within the EU with respect to the extent minor tax evasion is considered socially acceptable and to the extent that the authorities pursue minor tax evasion. The authorities will generally pursue cases of major tax evasion, but they often don't have the resources or the will to pursue cases of minor tax evasion. I would classify your example (car and/or fuel allowance) as a case of minor tax evasion. There are very probably laws in the book that make such benefits taxable, as @Clouvider suggested. (But it's always possible that Lithuania is really different in this respect.)
Another example would be if one owns an apartment that one (as a private person) rents out. Rent that one collects is taxable income. But you'll find that EU countries differ significantly to the extent that people feel obliged to declare the rent that they collect, and also to the extent that the authorities pursue tax evasion linked to undeclared rent.
As far as the OP's (= @noaman's) case of free electricity is concerned, it would probably be hard to pronounce a final judgment without knowing more about the particular context in which he works/is lodged. The immediate western reaction (which I share) is that if you're given an unmetered allowance of electricity for standard living purposes, then it would count as an abuse to use for mining purposes significantly more electricity than the amount that is needed for standard living purposes.
But even if the electricity needed for mining is granted, it's still not obvious whether it would be worthwhile to mine (as others have said). The initial investment in the equipment is already significant, but then you have to make sure that the equipment is safe from theft and that the space where the equipment runs is sufficiently cool. There are costs and worries associated with mining that go beyond the cost of electricity.
Indeed but it you have a low income job or no job at all (or just enjoy this stuff) - or if the currency of your country is fucked up - it's economicaly well worth it, as we see currently in Venezuela and many "poor" countries, even if it's an social and ecological nightmare in poorer countries or poorer area within the same "poor" country, as per the technological world rules..
I understand what you're saying, and just to note that I wasn't trying to argue against mining. I was just saying that there are issues beyond electricity to consider. :-)
The OP (= @noaman) didn't give much information about what he would try to mine or how, and most of this thread is focused on whether he's a good boy or not for thinking of using free electricity for mining, so no conclusion was reached about whether mining in his case would be worthwhile or not. But perhaps it would be.
It might be, but without money you cant really build a machine to mine a block this century, so, while in some countries like china might work because the stuff is made locally, there are much fewer chances to manage this in Venezuela as you said, not to mention you need a lot of power and AC per se to keep cool and, while the power may be free, the AC gear is not and venezuela is an equatorial country which produces nothing except heavy oil.
Well, Hardware still cost money. Maybe.
Which plant it is? Where?
I am afraid i cannot openly post about the location of the plant
Lets just say
It is in 200 km radius of lahore :-p
Its most probably in Sahiwal. I will call your employer and tell them what you're planning to do with the free facility they provide :P
I was about to write it in comment but the thread detailed instead of focusing on hardware issues people started judging me whether it was even ethical to mine when you are not charged any money
Sometimes i feel they are jealous (sarcasm)
Now since you have asked
Now i was looking to get ati 7990 sort of.power hungry gpus that simply consume lot of power and are cheap but have lot of processing power as performance/watt is something i am not considering :-)
ASIC miners are.out of my wallet
I just want the rig to be safe in this way that if it doesn't work out i can still use the parts for other things
Like you can play games on a gpu :-)
Well go ahead then
People are still using Windows xp in my country
Good luck explaining bitcoin mining to them
Hey, I am using XP laptops as well as Debian 3.1, what is wrong with that? :P
Jealous ??? You gotta be kidding.
We just don’t want to have our names tied to the forum that’s focusing on scamming employers or bullet proof copyright hosting @cociu style.
Simple as that.
You know I think he was kidding...
Even if power is free, there will always be some considerations with regards to power efficiency. The more power you use, the more cooling you need. Which in itself requires further investment.
ANY WAY... moving on. I have a question for you all.
In my garage where I live is a power outlet. A chunky 32amp 3-phase one at that. Something I can squeeze some 21kw out of. I have complete permission to use this socket but I am not directly responsible for paying the bill. The garage is a 'communal' one, part of the building estate where I live, and the electricity cost is shared among all the owners. Essentially, building management pays, and the management charge the property owners for their upkeep services.
Management has granted me full permission to use the socket (charging electric cars and such) and all residents can do the same.
Do I have the right to plug some miners, and everyone in the estate shares the cost with me? Is that stealing?
Obviously it's on the immoral/unethical side of the spectrum, but I, and all my neighbors have been given open ended and unrestricted usage of these sockets. For all I know one of my neighbors is already doing this and I am subsidizing them! And ultimately, the residents have all agreed to structure the management and costs in this way.
So do I have the right to hook in and collect my 21kw! That's about 15,120KwH /month = about EUR 1,800 worth of electricity. If I use my existing spare machines to CPU Min some monero, I figure that's worth around EUR 3,000 /month in Monero.
Yay or nay? (I know the answer, but I think it's not too dissimilar to the OP's situation).