Virtual Gold Could Draw Real Taxes

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Taldren — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 01:28:49 GMT

Woot, go NEW JERSEY

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vins — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 01:28:48 GMT

"His chief economist, Dan Miller, is a veteran gamer, with hours of World of Warcraft under his belt and the level 41 night-elf priest character to prove it."

priceless :D

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Shrake — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 01:28:47 GMT

"His chief economist, Dan Miller, is a veteran gamer, with hours of World of Warcraft under his belt and the level 41 night-elf priest character to prove it."

hmmz, that's about 36 hours of experience... yep, he's a true legend.

But where is this going tbh.

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Dainton — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 01:28:46 GMT

Bollocks!

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Rithiur — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 01:28:45 GMT

There is some idea in this and then some completely stupid things about this.

If a game has currency that has solid transfer rate to real life currency and trading usind money is completely allowed, then basically that money could be taxable, because basically it could be turned directly into real life cash. Similarly, you could think money in your bank account as virtual money, since basically you don't own any of the money in your bank account, it's simply kind of value of how much the bank owes you.

However the stupid thing, is that if money like gold in WoW is taxed, because it basically has value on eBay. The problem with this is that because WoW forbids the sell of any WoW related thing for real life cash, it would mean that everyone would suffer from the actions of those who break the rules. In this case, it could probably even mean that games CAN NOT disallow selling virtual property online.

There is also addinational problem with taxing virtual property. Only part of the player base is US citizen. How are you going to determine which players are from US and which are not? There's always proxies and you can use fake identities. Using credit card information is not an option for various reasons. Force every MMO to separate US players from everyone else? and how would that even work?

There's just too many problems with taxing virtual income, that even if it was allowed, it would be too hard to enforce. Taxasion should only be done, when the virtual property actually turns into real life money.

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Mechrior — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 01:28:44 GMT

I live in the UK and the idea of taxing a GAME for some fool cause they are greedy really irks me..... I play a GAME because i like to have fun..... I pay enough in subscription as it is let alone the governenment trying to tax me for just playing..... it just sound like another excuse to get more money to try and be the best country and have spare cash to build more useless icons when the money could be spent in so many better ways....

just my 2 pence

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guidall — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 01:28:43 GMT

Blizzard owns our characters (items, golds, ...) and eBay WoW account/stuff selling is forbidden. So it's not to us to pay any taxes about WoW.

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Zmidponk — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 01:28:42 GMT

'Blizzard owns our characters (items, golds, ...) and eBay WoW account/stuff selling is forbidden. So it's not to us to pay any taxes about WoW.'

Bingo. Got it in one. Even if you were to argue that, every time you loot a mob, a 'barter' has taken place, every single person who plays WoW has electronically signed an agreement that all virtual items within WoW remains the property of Blizzard at all times, even down to your own character and the items worn by that character. As such, this idea of a 'barter', certainly in the case of WoW, is utterly null and void - you have received the ownership of nothing in exchange for relinquishing the ownership of nothing. Even in the case of buying WoW stuff for RL money, this clause of the agreement means that you are paying money to receive nothing, legally speaking. The income the gold-sellers receive may still be taxable, but it's only the gold-sellers liable to pay that tax (if you ignore the fact their activities break the WoW TOS and/or EULA, and, as such, are in breach of civil law).

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demonhuntr — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 01:28:41 GMT

wow, this has to be the dumbest thing i have ever read in my life. if the government wants to tax me for playing a game then i will sue them for harassment. when i am playing WoW it is to get away from life and relax, not to make money and break the rules i agreed to when i started playing.

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Amavana — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 01:28:40 GMT

player: i swing my greataxe at the orc's head gm: you do 10 damage, the orc dies. player: i check through his belongings, looking for treasures gm: you find some light chain armor, a short sword, and 20 silver pieces, that'll be $2 please. player: what? gm: sorry, have to collect taxes on your loot. player: but i didn't actually get anything, you just *told* me that i did gm: it's the law player: f*ck you, america

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2rbear — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 01:28:39 GMT

lol,

"His chief economist, Dan Miller, is a veteran gamer, with hours of World of Warcraft under his belt and the level 41 night-elf priest character to prove it."

OMG, this guy's an insane player, I bet he hasn't done anything but playing for weeks, just to accomplish that xD

BTW, I leveled from 31 to 36 in one night, LAN party... (until 4:30 in the morning) :P Energy drink FTW ;)

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2rbear — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 01:28:38 GMT

This whole thing with taxing ingame currency is stupid, only a retard could have come up with an idea like that (no offense to the retards) The reason for that lies obvious in the words "INGAME currency"! Taxes are for the real life, so let us keep them there!

What would it be like this to get a message like this?

(you've just raided Karazhan or MC, and the boss dropped some kickass loot) "We're sorry, but we had to take a small percentage of your loot (IOW Nerf your kickass Karazhan epic) because some fool figured out that we had to take taxes of all the loot ingame. Have a nice day!"

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Kody — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 01:28:37 GMT

I honestly can't see this passing congress. The whole bit on taxing people for item drops because they have a monetary value is well... silly beyond comprehension.

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Withoutasoul — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 01:28:36 GMT

I highly doubt Congress will pass this as well. They also have to consider that kids play this game. How do they expect them to pay the taxes? If its so out of hand they should charge taxes only when said character or item is sold on per say eBay. idk how they could do that, but find a way!

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xniplick — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 01:28:35 GMT

Gaming industry = multi billion dollar industry Taxing each player per loot would create millions of former gamers Gaming market crashes and takes down world markets with it

If the government really wants to make a dime, legalize pot and tax the hell out of it