Hey Wild Bill, I never said bartering is illegal as indeed it's one of the oldest forms of commerce, however when you have an ATO who treats it as a Dollar for Dollar currency when in reality it really might be worth One Cent in the Dollar if that even then you have a big problem. Imo Barter Card systems are really just Marketing Tools to entice potential Businesses to believe they will be able to attract extra customers to their businesses and make others believe there might be a tax advantage in being able to transact using another "business" currency. Bartercard have progressed because they are opening up this virtual currency to a wider audience instead of its membership. Imo Bartercard systems are attempting to become mini Reserve Banks in their virtual currencies they call Trade$'s. So I'm not saying it's illegal at moment because it's obvious the ATO, ASIC, ACCC, all accept this new currency as legit now but let's consider into the future when say ten such new business currencies control 50% of our economy? Do you really believe the RBA will sit by and not ask the regulators to change the law to ban these trade dollars being redeemed after being created out of nothing? There will be winners and losers. Those who issued $billions in Trade $'s won't have to pay them back and those owed the trade dollars will lose the ability to redeem them for even One Cent in The $. This is the real debate. I'm not even going to use 23 years as a measure of success in this legal barter business because Madoff got away in his illegal deceit for how long before the GFC stuffed him up.
As I said before govt employees with university qualifications are not employed to think beyond the Act of Parliament but I bet some are already aware of what I'm arguing about, but they are being told not to worry about the future mayhem, just concentrate about the here and now which Wild Bill your doing now.
Later on I'll post a quote by a Real Estate Agent I asked yesterday about how these trade dollars worked for him.
