http://secondlife.reuters.com/stories/2006/10/15/us-congress-launchs-probe-into-virtual-economies/

I'm 100% serious. Read the article. Basically, they want to find a way to figure out how much your online items are worth in actual money, and tax you for them.

lol.

In game money or do they plan on giving minors tax returns? How many horny adolecent teens will oowe back taxes lol. Imagine having to filll out a W-2 frm online.

Name: Holysoldier
Address: New Avalon
Proffesion:Warrior Monk
How you make your money? Charr hunting and trading rare items, with dyes.
income? 20k a month
Expenses 10k a month.

i thought that was actually kind of funny lionheart.

shit. D:

holy mother of god.

The world is a fucked up place. :(

One small step for totalitarian
One giant leap for

...totalitarian.

wow lol

I was thinking about the teenagers who play, but can't vote. If it actually passed it'd be pretty interesting because they'd be getting taxed without representation in congress unless they were over 18. I'd HOPE the people enacting the law would be smart enough to see that, and exempt anyone under 18 from being taxed... but given the fact they are stupid enough to actually consider trying to pass it.........

...didn't you already get taxed for purchasing what's necessary to play these things? Aren't you taxed for being connected? What, if the connection goes outside of the U.S., does it have to follow import/export rules?

What a load of shit.

Aw man, WoW nerds are gonna be angry about dis.

To be honest, I really do not think this will go ahead.

Surely, it won't. It's the most ridiculous thing I have heard in weeks.

I seriously doubt that will go anywhere, even with all the nonsense in our government right now. It's just too absurd. Sooner or later someone will explain to the people in congress who don't know what MMORPGs are that what's being talked about is not actual property, and they will snort and tell these folks to quit wasting time.

hahahah, that sounds ridiculous


although when real world money is being spent and earnt (eg in second life) via online property... you can almost see where they're coming from. but surely those earnings still count for income tax. it's still absurd.

Guys let's rebel.

People privately selling things to each other don't get taxed anyway. Nobody taxes eBay purchases. Unless you are an actual business somehow making a real life profit off of virtual transactions in a game, there's just no way to even remotely justify it.

pretty sure that actually does happen, at least i vaguely remember reading about such a thing. in any case i wouldnt know much about the details as i tend to avoid mmo's, them being such a giant waste of time and all. =/

Blegh. This concept is downright ludicrous. It's just another way the government is trying to pinch pennies from the populace. Hope it fails, miserably.

...didn't you already get taxed for purchasing what's necessary to play these things? Aren't you taxed for being connected? What, if the connection goes outside of the U.S., does it have to follow import/export rules?

What a load of shit.

Mm, people already do pay for the entertainment services....
Playing and collecting items and earning this "virtual cash" isn't exactly something you should be taxed on...>>
If people paid real money to buy the "virtual cash", then I think that'd naturally be taxed anyway through income (as someone's said already), so it's not necessary for that...

But like, if I found something valuable in an MMORPG, and then I have to pay real money for just finding it randomly somewhere....(because it's "income")
It's like every moment, by pure luck, someone takes money away from me....
I could like, lose an entire month's earnings if I'm really lucky one day.
Oo....><
The ONLY way this could work is if the "tax" isn't real money. It's the virtual money from within the economy the person found the item in. ...And I'm not sure whether the government could find this useful....unless they're interested in MMORPGs >> And then they could be like, "Government. Taxes?" *gets free money* MUHAHHAHAHAH

hi we do have a gaming forum

Blegh. This concept is downright ludicrous. It's just another way the government is trying to pinch pennies from the populace. Hope it fails, miserably.

x2

hi we do have a gaming forum

No one else, including an Admin, seemed to mind that it was in GD.

SORRY IT WASN'T ABOUT KID SEX OK

People privately selling things to each other don't get taxed anyway. Nobody taxes eBay purchases. Unless you are an actual business somehow making a real life profit off of virtual transactions in a game, there's just no way to even remotely justify it.

First part - True.
Taxes on ebay - Required but the responsibility of the seller.
Virtrual transactions in a game - nothing is tangible and taxable. Good luck to them on taxing. What could they audit anyway?

But this thread isn't about gaming, it's about government wanting to tax virtual economies. The discusion is about taxation and to what extent the government should be able to apply taxation, not about gaming.

So what I'm saying is that you're dumb sarah.

game-related taxes = about games.

the game forums are meant for more than just discussion of consoles/specific games. anything related to the gaming industry-- and this certainly counts-- goes here.

THEY SHOULD TAX EVERYTHING

Listen to Sarah.


Also:

Blegh. This concept is downright ludicrous. It's just another way the government is trying to pinch pennies from the populace. Hope it fails, miserably.
x3

The only time listening to Ender did me any good was playing Gunbound. O:]


More on topic, I'm agree'n with the people that say it will never, ever come to pass. It's just really hilarious that people actually are considering it.

i'd love to see this talked about on the colbert report. lol. i fucking love that show. >.<


btw. is it me, or is the idea of making real money in a video game also bull? supposedly in the game "second life" or whatever, you can convert your fake game money into real money. and in the game, you can earn money too. basically i think i can setup a bank acount with fake money, make a fake cd, leave it for a few years. and cash out the profits in real money?

NO WONDER the govn't wants to tax us. they should just do it for this game though. no other game allows that imo. either way. fuck the govt.

i'd love to see this talked about on the colbert report. lol. i fucking love that show. >.<

Yes, that show is wonderful. However he did talk about the Wii as being #1 in his Threatdown. I loved how he said in a gangsta voice, "I got'st me one."

lmao.

pretty sure that actually does happen, at least i vaguely remember reading about such a thing. in any case i wouldnt know much about the details as i tend to avoid mmo's, them being such a giant waste of time and all. =/

I could understand taxing people for transactions they make that convert to real money... I mean as long as we're in a situation where there are taxes in the first place.

Maybe that's more what this is about, in which case it wouldn't be as ludicrous as it first seems.

I actually read it fairly closely, to make sure I was interpreting it correctly. Of course, there's always a decent chance I read it wrong, but it sure seemed to me that the people pushing for this consider items in online games "property". This means, in their minds, those items are taxable.

I actually read it fairly closely, to make sure I was interpreting it correctly. Of course, there's always a decent chance I read it wrong, but it sure seemed to me that the people pushing for this consider items in online games "property". This means, in their minds, those items are taxable.

in tax law in the US, you're not taxed on any unrealized income. if you have 100 shares of stocks that were 5$ and they go to 10$, you just earned 1,000$. that income, however, is unrealized until you "cash out." when you sell the shares to get actual money, you need to pay taxes on it.

can't imagine them ever applying different logic to similar situations.

if you buy a home for 40,000$ and 15 years later it's worth 90,000$, you don't pay taxes on 50,000$ of income. the taxes just come when you sell the house. (property taxes obviously go up but that's not the same)

You know what I always say, fuck US Congress.

in tax law in the US, you're not taxed on any unrealized income. if you have 100 shares of stocks that were 5$ and they go to 10$, you just earned 1,000$. that income, however, is unrealized until you "cash out." when you sell the shares to get actual money, you need to pay taxes on it.

can't imagine them ever applying different logic to similar situations.

if you buy a home for 40,000$ and 15 years later it's worth 90,000$, you don't pay taxes on 50,000$ of income. the taxes just come when you sell the house. (property taxes obviously go up but that's not the same)

ah i see. that makes a hella lot a sence. basically, i should never sell my home or convert my mesos/gil into real cash. :p

Oh shit because I was planning to convert my gil into cash soon =(