Re: Can Forex really be regulated?
Reply #2 –
Gains made on any legitimate financial operation have to be declared as earnings, but you can soften certain blows and deduct losses from your gains. It's more than likely, in the UK, that any web-only firm you use is not registered with the FSA, (binary options activity is gambling according to the FSA, who also state that binary options operations should be registered with the Gambling Commission, even though the Gambling Commission has not registered any binary options operators according to their latest available reports), so getting caught by the taxman is possible but highly unlikely. On moral grounds alone all gains on financial operations other than gambling should be declared. There are countries where gambling is very strictly controlled; in the USA gambling "remotely" is called wire fraud, a Federal offence, and can lead you straight into the unfriendly arms of those sweet gentlefolk of the FBI.
Forex is different, as it is considered by the UK FSA, and by other similar regulators, to be legitimate financial trading. I don't know of any negative thoughts of the FBI about it. However, since web-only financial firms are extremely likely to be binary options operations, the relatively few Forex firms have little effect on the overall statistics. Do not think binary options and Forex offer similar opportunities: Forex trading is fundamentally equitable, binary options operating is anything but equitable. They should not even appear in the same text without some similar reservation.