What is Digg?182 Comments
- inactive, on 01/13/2009, -2/+35)if you drive a car, car;) - I'll tax the street;
(if you try to sit, sit;) - I'll tax your seat;
(if you get too cold, cold;) - I'll tax the heat;
(if you take a walk, walk;) - I'll tax your feet. - Snoosy, on 01/12/2009, -15/+47Anybody who is willing to waste their money on crap like Second Life items deserves to pay tax on it.
- Terasiel, on 01/13/2009, -2/+30It is second amendment time yet?
- StigNordas, on 01/13/2009, -1/+28I'm not sure Ben Franklin had this in mind when he said 'death and taxes'
- joshuaer, on 01/13/2009, -0/+25Wanted to Sell WoW Epic gems 8 total, Please not that residents of the USA must pay a 6.5% sales tax to taxman43 of the {IRS} alliance. He is watching all of my transactions now since I Pwnd him last night!
- cultist667, on 01/12/2009, -6/+28Easy delete everything it never existed. Tell the IRS ***** to call the WOW GM to do a restoration of the rich toon you deleted. Oops used up all three of mine on my account. Go ***** yourself IRS.
- veriix, on 01/13/2009, -0/+20Virtual taxation without virtual representation!!
- ybfree, on 01/13/2009, -4/+22How much more money does the government plan on bleeding from people? I'm sure most of the people involved in these trades have jobs and are paying the ridiculously high Income Tax.
- inactive, on 01/13/2009, -1/+19IRS should go tax the ***** out of wall street. what destroyed America wasn't welfares mothers or even illegal immigration, it was a bunch of baby boomer wall street gambling scam artists.
- drunkenoaf, on 01/13/2009, -1/+18***** that. What are the government doing in return for the money that you're giving them in this virtual world?
Nothing. - protogenxl, on 01/12/2009, -0/+16You Will Get my ISK when you pry it out of my Cold Dead HAND!
- Nauree, on 01/13/2009, -0/+16New line shows up on your 1040EZ
Gross WoW Gold Acquired. - dougmc, on 01/13/2009, -0/+13Legally? Blizzard can make policy, but they don't make (real world) laws.
The police can't come arrest you because you sold your +5 sword of awesomeness to somebody for $100 -- even if Blizzard said you can't sell in-game items outside of the game.
However, the IRS will consider that $100 to be taxable income. In that sense, virtual worlds are already taxed -- when people make real world income from virtual worlds, they are supposed to pay taxes on it. This is in effect now, and always has been. Perhaps people are illegally avoiding these taxes, but they are most certainly supposed to report it as income and pay.
As for taxing virtual worlds directly, that doesn't really make much sense. You just got $200 in monopoly money for crossing Go in Monopoly? Should the IRS really get anything, either real money or monopoly money? Probably not ... but if I give you $10 real money for $10000 Monopoly money to help me win the game -- that's $10 profit for you, and legally you need to report it as income (minus related expenses, of course.) - thefox84, on 01/13/2009, -3/+15Why don't we REDUCE taxes and NOT come up with new taxes, WHAT AN IDEA!? Seeing as nobody has any money anyways.
- inactive, on 01/13/2009, -0/+11For singing this song, I'll tax the beat
- timla, on 01/13/2009, -1/+12I just read the actual IRS document, and this moron really wants to tax in-game property and transactions. One line within the report even talks about taxing the rewards you get from completing WOW quests. These people do not have enough to do or just wanted the government to pay for their WOW/second life subscription while they conducted their "investigation"
- AndrewMoyer, on 01/13/2009, -0/+10At least in a virtual world, you can respawn...
- Dynamoo, on 01/13/2009, -1/+11Is it April 1st already?
- jflaker, on 01/13/2009, -0/+9What's next? sending the tax man to garage/yard sales, the kid's lemonade stand.......
STOP THE TAXING MADNESS.
More money in my pocket = More money spent = Economy improves! - jaxontyler, on 01/13/2009, -0/+8That reminds me, I need to go buy my assault weapons before the 20th.
- wefarrell, on 01/13/2009, -1/+9as much as i agree with second life being retarded, this is leading down a horrible horrible road.
- CrushThemTorg, on 01/13/2009, -0/+8InterStellar Kredit. The unit of currency in EVE Online. That thing's so complex, they hire an economist to, presumably, keep the bitch from collapsing.
- Bloodwine, on 01/13/2009, -0/+8You laugh, but in my town yardsales have been getting shutdown by local police if they didn't pay for a yard sale license. apparently these days you have to have permits to do yard sales within city limits.
Their excuse for this is to prevent people from starting home-based businesses without filing the proper paperwork. - FKnight, on 01/13/2009, -0/+8This is about taxing income you might receive as a result of converting virtual currency to real currency. They're not talking about taxing the gold that Archdruid Staghelm gives you for completing a quest or any gold you make as a result of selling gems on the WoW auction house.
They're talking about taxing the money that you get when you sell game currency (like WoW gold) outside of the game or when you convert in game currency to real money (e.g. Linden Dollars in Second Life).
The only thing is -- there are already laws on the books dealing with this, so I don't get what the point of the entire issue is. - Hearron, on 01/12/2009, -0/+7If they would tax the herb and make online gambling legal, they could almost save SS or Medicare.
- Serinox, on 01/12/2009, -4/+11How are they planing on spending taxes gained from wow? The in game currency is isn't real world transferable, so what are they going to use wow gold for?
edit: needless to say my opinion is that if they tax a virtual world they get virtual money, which is useless to the government. - IneedaSN, on 01/13/2009, -0/+6I already have my bear arms on my wall
- Lord_oftheTrons, on 01/13/2009, -0/+6SRV!!
- Terasiel, on 01/13/2009, -1/+7Whatcha doin with the other one?
- FKnight, on 01/13/2009, -0/+6I'm curious to know what's wrong with existing tax law which already taxes income made by converting Linden dollars to real dollars.
- Samuraii, on 01/13/2009, -0/+6If they want revenue from virtual money, they'll find a way. If they tax the virtual transaction in game, they can resell it. I can see it now: "Whisper from IRSOrc: You wanna pls buy gold? Only $50 for 10,000 gold"
- inactive, on 01/13/2009, -0/+5And they'll STAY in debt as long as they keep allowing the Fed to print money like it's yanking it off of a toilet paper roll!
Debt-financed economies ALWAYS fail in the end. - cawfee, on 01/13/2009, -0/+5The key here is that they're not taxing VIRTUAL economies per se, but rather the as of yet uncharted territory of user-to-user business associated with those games. I don't even know why they brought up WoW in that context, since the only non-Blizzard revenue that's being made is by quasi-illegal gold buyers and sellers, and good luck taxing those.
- borez, on 01/13/2009, -0/+5Proxy server, offshore bank account.
- wefarrell, on 01/13/2009, -0/+5if you write the music, i'll tax the sheet.
- dystra, on 01/13/2009, -0/+5does this work for counterstrike too?
- heyitsguay, on 01/13/2009, -1/+6From the IRS statement, it seems like this measure is more to address those people who actually make a fair amount of real money off of these virtual economies. Which seems fair enough, at that point it's like any other money-generating endeavor. As games grow and the virtual economies become more solid, it could become easier for people to, say, convert their earnings to virtual money to avoid paying taxes on it, and then converting it back.
But yes yes, the government is evil and bleeding you dry. - AndrewMoyer, on 01/13/2009, -0/+5I work hard so my employer makes revenue... corporate tax takes a little off the top...
I earn my salary... income tax takes a little off the top...
I buy supplies... state sales tax takes a little off the top...
I live in my house... municipal and school tax takes a little off the top...
I foresee a day in the not-so-distant future where we will be taxed on even our tax payments. It'll be known as the "tax tax", and it'll pass because everybody will just think Congress had a stuttering problem. - Skooma714, on 01/13/2009, -0/+5TAXMAN. do do do do do do
- iticu, on 01/13/2009, -0/+5Not that he does anything, he didn;t even notice a three year long exploit that was literally printing ISK in huge amounts.
- mwalker05, on 01/13/2009, -4/+9i dont know if i would be bragging that i play wow, especially if i was retarded enough to delete 3 characters since doing so requires you to type the word "delete" and confirm it twice.
also WoW wouldnt really apply since you cant legally spend or earn real world money on items in the game. they are talking about games like 2nd life where people are making thousands of dollars for selling digital items and they arent being taxed on that income.
finally, deleting those items so that you dont have to claim them would probably be considered a form of fraud or tax evasion.
in summary, you are an idiot. - MyEuphoria, on 01/13/2009, -0/+5So they want to tax my income in MMO's?
Then my account subscription just became a deduction... net win. ***** you IRS. - blanktarget, on 01/13/2009, -0/+5They don't mean wow, they mean games that you can transfer real world money into virtual money. Lots of them out there with micro transactions.
- Midtowner, on 01/12/2009, -0/+5I assume what's coming is that the IRS is going to start requiring online service providers and purveyors of goods to start sending out annual forms (like W-2's, but with a much lower threshold amount) detailing the amount received by each taxpayer from each company. I also wouldn't be completely shocked to see some sort of required reporting of goods sold as states are missing out on taxing a lot lot of unreported online transactions.
- Tbyrd073, on 01/13/2009, -0/+5Ehh I am hoping to use Obama's stimulus check to buy myself an assault rifle style AK or AR-15. I already have a AK-74 and a Colt 9 mm. but somehow it feels more satisfying to know Obama is buying my next gun.
- jamesmcm, on 01/13/2009, -1/+5Lol, I can just imagine Obama having 10 billion WoW gold on his account from the taxes.
- Bloodwine, on 01/13/2009, -0/+4Do I at least get to depreciate my old gear?
- WhiskeyLemur, on 06/30/2009, -0/+4- repairs after raids are tax-deductible (repairs/maintenance)
- gryphon/chimera fees count as commute and are *not* tax deductible
- tips to mages for inter-city ports are irregular travel expenses and *are* tax deductible
- fees paid into the guild bank are only tax deductible if your guild is registered as a non-profit or religious organization
- health insurance??? - iticu, on 01/13/2009, -0/+4Haha, you think the IRS cares about pixels in WoW? They just want to tax transactions where virtual money turns into real money.
It wouldn't even apply to gold selling as that's illegal in the EULA.
But still, go ahead and delete that character. - dougmc, on 01/13/2009, -0/+4The US income tax rates are pretty typical compared to many other countries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_bracket
Though it doesn't really matter -- I'm sure if the top tax bracket was 5%, people would *still* complain about the ridiculously high income tax ... -
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