Automatic LP share withdrawal into wallets is sub-optimal (i.e. when depositing LINK, you receive aLINK). This could be construed as a token swap, which potentially carries tax considerations - instead of being viewed as posting collateral for a loan as you would with a centralized borrow/lend counterparty, which carries no tax obligation. We should fix this.
We propose to enable optional LP share withdrawal (atokens) with a UI in the site itself. So you could take 0-100% of your aTokens, upon receipt of collateral. This would largely fix the issue and enable Aave to expand its footprint with larger institutions. I don’t think folks would mind selecting 100% on the scale to withdraw aTokens to expand the market meaningfully. Simple idea but big benefit.
I live in the US and love to use Aave. I’ve talked to a few accountants as well as TokenTax accountants and they’ve all told me that the US sees ETH -> aETH as a crypto-to-crypto transaction/trade. Meaning we will be taxed at the short-term capital gains rate (45%) versus the long-term capital gains rate (15%), just for using ETH or any token as collateral. This is a massive disincentive for US users and if it was remedied Aave’s implementation, use, and TVL would likely soar in the US. This proposal could help open the door for more institutional adoption in the states.
Curious if depositing to an intermediate smart contract that would manage your position would still be considered as a taxable event. I see the possibility of creating an intermediate smart contract that holds the aTokens for you, and using credit delegation, allows you to borrow against your aTokens at any time without actually holding any.
Also curious about @Emilio’s point. Probably one for a lawyer / tax specialist
Great proposal @vance as this is also an issue for us as Delphi Ventures. That said, I think it’s likely tha the vast majority of users don’t have this problem and imo aTokens provide the smoothest UX. Given this, I’d suggest that the default setting should be full withdrawal of your aTokens, perhaps with a checkbox option when you deposit in case you don’t want to automatically receive your aTokens.
Work in progress, created a proxy contract factory that allows you to interact with Aave V2 on Kovan without ever having to receive any aTokens in your actual wallet.
Nice contribution @Zer0dot I think the Aave team could review the code and start looking into the process on how we could implement it securely into the protocol and also work on the user interface to allow the user to choose to the optional LP shares.
I just wanted to bump this with a link to the migration discussion as I think the Aave V1 to V2 migration is a very relevant example of how the aTokens are going to create a huge tax headache for existing deposits, highlighting the importance of this feature for the future.
Many people who want to (or are forced to) make the migration are going to be subject to immediate massive taxable events due to the aToken to aToken trade, especially with the huge increase in collateral value due to price appreciation, and the fact that everyone who used Aave v1 is still in the short-term capital gains period.