NEWS: Congress to decide on taxing virtual items

chrono fantasy said:
If the government starts charging taxes on ingame purchases with gil or gold or whatever, we'd probably end up seeing a Virtual World war 3 in which all the other countries will try to shutdown all of American's electronic systems with hackings and such.
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Nerds of the world Unite!

I can just imagine all, what? 10 mil+? of the world's gamers unite to take down America. Like a hundred thousand hackers all trying to hack them
 
Jesus, the thought occured to me just how many tax returns/claim forms/itemizations i'd have to file between 3 games and god knows how many toons lol..

I'd have to quit my job. <.<
 
Jagster said:
I'm pretty sure the talk is about the buying and selling of ingame money.
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Would think a standard sales tax would be enough. That being said, the man in charge of determining this refers to the internet as a series of tubes, you REALLY think he could tell the difference between Second Life and Final Fantasy 11? You are hoping they have the slightest idea on what the fuck they are doing.
 
Most F2P MMOs use some sort of cash trade for certain items and character upgrades, so I'm willing to bet that those will be the extent of the reach of this type of bill. Maybe it will extent into sites like IGE. Look at it this way though, gil is already expensive right now. If there is a tax placed on top of it all it does is drives the price up and makes it less profitable to RMT sites to provide the service. Win win for people that are playing P2P MMOs.
 
Hmm I should probably try to findout about USA tax laws eventually.....

Would the USA tax me on lets say.. anything despite the fact that I aint set foot there for several years? Do they have the nerve to think they have the right to? I wouldnt be amused if I took a vacation in new york and the irs jailed me for tax evasion.
 
Khajit said:
Hmm I should probably try to findout about USA tax laws eventually.....

Would the USA tax me on lets say.. anything despite the fact that I aint set foot there for several years? Do they have the nerve to think they have the right to? I wouldnt be amused if I took a vacation in new york and the irs jailed me for tax evasion.
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What country do you make your money in? If you income in America is less than 10k, then you have no taxes to pay anyways.
 
My biggest concern is not that they'll put a sales tax exclusively on RMT sites, honestly. Although I'm morally against any increase in taxes or new taxes altogether, I have to admit that taxing RMT wuldn't affect me in the slightest. However, a tax on "online commodities" wouldn't be exclusively on RMT; they'd be adding tax to your monthly fees too. After all, from a tax/government standpoint there's really no difference between the $12.95 you pay per month for your online character, and the $25 purchase of RMT gil for said character. It's all covered under that catchall phrase "virtual goods".
 
Fellina said:
My biggest concern is not that they'll put a sales tax exclusively on RMT sites, honestly. Although I'm morally against any increase in taxes or new taxes altogether, I have to admit that taxing RMT wuldn't affect me in the slightest. However, a tax on "online commodities" wouldn't be exclusively on RMT; they'd be adding tax to your monthly fees too. After all, from a tax/government standpoint there's really no difference between the $12.95 you pay per month for your online character, and the $25 purchase of RMT gil for said character. It's all covered under that catchall phrase "virtual goods".
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We dont technically own our characters though as we are really just "renting" them so we can at least try to use that as an argument. In that case can Ige can jailed for attempted fraud when they try to sell gil/characters should this become legit?
 
Well, I guess I wouldn't have to pay taxes on my monthly fees considering I don't live in the US.

Sucks to be you! <.<
 
Vat?....
 
You all don't seem to understand it doesn't apply to games like WoW and FFXI. You don't own anything except the content ID. That is the only thing that they can (and do) tax in FFXI.

These people are talking about a game where you can actually own a piece of land inside the game. There are people who make serious cash buying and selling Land in that game. That is what they are going to tax.

And besides, taxes go to fund all of our government projects or in other words, better the country where you live. Why do so many people have a problem paying taxes? I might be able to understand it if you were paying 75% of your income, but you aren't.
 
Arctyrael said:
What country do you make your money in? If you income in America is less than 10k, then you have no taxes to pay anyways.
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That's not quite true. Even if you are making your money, and your "tax home" is in another country you are supposed to file for taxes.

As long as you pass one of two residency tests to prove you are living full time in another country (to call it your tax home) and you are making less than 80k USD a year in the country that is your tax home, than you will not be taxed, but you do still have to file for them. If the IRS did have a problem with you, you could simply file for back taxes, and probably wouldn't be charged anything unless your making a lot wherever you are working.

You could also try and go to court against the IRS. A number of people have been doing so, and have been winning >.>

Anyway, official IRS rules: http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc854.html (has links to the other documents you'd need to read)

Sorry for the derail.
 
Trippyhippy said:
You all don't seem to understand it doesn't apply to games like WoW and FFXI. You don't own anything except the content ID. That is the only thing that they can (and do) tax in FFXI.

These people are talking about a game where you can actually own a piece of land inside the game. There are people who make serious cash buying and selling Land in that game. That is what they are going to tax.

And besides, taxes go to fund all of our government projects or in other words, better the country where you live. Why do so many people have a problem paying taxes? I might be able to understand it if you were paying 75% of your income, but you aren't.
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If they actually managed to spend them on 'bettering the country in which you live' as opposed to barely keeping the status quo i suppose it might not be such a big deal.

Zing!
 
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