IRS wants to Tax MMO players for their gold??

[wrench115]

Dont know if this is old or has been posted before. I found this to be amazing. It's pretty scary but the logic behind their reasoning sounds almost convincing.

"If you haven't misspent hours battling an Arctic Ogre Lord near an Ice Dungeon or been equally profligate spending time reading the published works of the Internal Revenue Service," Dibbell's article began, "you probably haven't wondered whether the United States government will someday tax your virtual winnings from games played over the Internet. The real question is: Why hasn't it happened already?"http://tech.msn.com/products/article.aspx?cp-documentid=1392930&GT1=8902

[kurisu7885]

What are the odds some people would urge taxes to be abnormally high for this so that MMOs would be snubbed out?

[Demontestament]

Ok I am confused, is he talking about taxing people who buy items and money online? Or is he talking about taxing me for the money I make on a casual DDO dungeon raid? If so how will my +1 Masterwork Scimitar cost me, or the 353 platinum 950 gold 200 silver and 25 copper run me in real life.

[wrench115]

Ok I am confused, is he talking about taxing people who buy items and money online? Or is he talking about taxing me for the money I make on a casual DDO dungeon raid? If so how will my +1 Masterwork Scimitar cost me, or the 353 platinum 950 gold 200 silver and 25 copper run me in real life.

Their talking about taxing you real life money for earning ingame currency for services rendered ( quests killing etc... ) for goods. It's pretty insane.

[KN]

I think it might be a good idea to apply this to Second Life, seeing as people make millions of that.

Plus, I just hate Second Life.

[kurisu7885]

I think it might be a good idea to apply this to Second Life, seeing as people make millions of that.

Plus, I just hate Second Life.
Not a good idea. Give them an inch, they'll take ten miles. They tax Second Life, they'll tax everything else.

[Runefire]

On a side note, does anyone know if professional gamers get their winnings taxed?

I could see it as being a good idea if people are somehow earning a living by trading such goods (like people making a living off of eBay and other sites).

[Demontestament]

Their talking about taxing you real life money for earning ingame currency for services rendered ( quests killing etc... ) for goods. It's pretty insane.

So let me get this right. I go in to a dungeon raid, kill a lich, raid his treasure chest, get 350gp, a masterwork heavy crossbow, a +1 greataxe and a Firebrand sword. I seel them in the Auction House and get a couple thousand platinum and they are going to want to tax me real money because I got fake money?

[Beacon]

Well, if they decide to tax World of Warcraft, then they'll have some pretty major obstacles to overcome.
<Government> Hey, Blizzard, we want to tax your players. How much gold, equipment, etc. does Beacon have?
<Blizzard> That's private information.
<Government> Okay, we've jumped through all kinds of hoops to force you to give us access to your server information. How much does he owe?
<Blizzard> Okay, he's got a 47 Hunter with a Sword of Serenity and 40 gold. So we calculate the total value of that, and he has to pay 7%, right? That comes up to... $0.00, since none of that has a real world value.
<Government> Damn, I was hoping we'd at least make some of the millions we paid to get this law through in the first place.

I also believe (not 100% sure) that technically speaking, I don't own any of the equipment or money that Kialla has, or Kialla herself. They're technically Blizzard, and Blizzard has the right to take them away from me if I don't behave.
This is a bit more of a problem with 2nd Life and Sony games where there <i>is</i> a real world value for the items you have. You can buy gold or property. Taxing the transaction would be fine, but taxing me for earning gold in game would be like making me pay taxes on the couch I just built. Similarly, trying to make me pay property tax on the in game property I have is again, like taxing me for owning a couch. It's not <i>real</i> property.

[Cecil475]

You make virtual $$ on a videogame and the IRS wants it's cut?! How desprate are these douchebags?!

- Warren Lewis

edit - besides that, how would they translate WOW currency into US currency
gold coins = dollars?

[KN]

As I said before, for Second Life, this is pretty obvious, as ingame money is actually worth real world money, and some people actually gave up their day jobs to make a gazillion bucks from that game.

I know you don't like taxes, but you've got a deficit the size of the moon. If you aren't willing to have sane taxes like the rest of the world, at least consider things like this.

And yes, any American above low income nagging about high taxes needs to shut up.

[Demontestament]

As I said before, for Second Life, this is pretty obvious, as ingame money is actually worth real world money, and some people actually gave up their day jobs to make a gazillion bucks from that game.

I know you don't like taxes, but you've got a deficit the size of the moon. If you aren't willing to have sane taxes like the rest of the world, at least consider things like this.

And yes, any American above low income nagging about high taxes needs to shut up.

Ok if you are making real money off it, yeah tax it up. But to tax just normal people who are on WoW because they have a Sword of Infinate Truth and 300 Platinum is insane. They probably figure since people are able to score cash off of Second Life all MMO's are like that.

Seriously if they try this I am going to claim my guild as a business, every raid we do is a business expense, I help noobs so that counts as chairity, I clean up the dungeons(community service), and I help support the local economy(buying healing potions....business expense as well) basically pull the same thing every rich person in the real world does :D.

[KN]

Taxing WoW renders Blizzard's ToS void, thus, powerleveling and selling **** on eBay would become legal.

[Picho]

you have it all wrong, the IRS wants to get into taxing the MMO's so they can play the game. Its a simple plan to evily take over games like WoW and DDO with thier Super Lawer/Taxman guilds.

[dutch_gamer]

I hate taxes just as much as almost anyone else, but I still do think that IRS has the right and the obligation to tax RMT. The deal is that nowadays a lot of people are making money from gaming alone, yet they aren't paying any income taxes. How is this fair for people that have normal jobs? Gold famers living in the western world still make use of the exact same services as anyone else who does have a normal job. So they ought to pay up, or shut up, basically.

If the IRS would only tax transactions being made, they still wouldn't be able to tax most of the RMTs. They would simply use shady companies based abroad to do the transactions for them. Of course, they could then apply the gambling law to RMT. But I am not really that confident that would work that well either. Taxing what you gain in-game would be the easiest way for the IRS to get people to pay up. Is that a good solution? No, it isn't. I would absolutely hate that solution because I would stop playing MMOs all together, if that would ever happen. But it is still a possibility that it may happen. And yet people that love RMT always claim that they don't ruin anything. But it seems that they are at the moment. They are giving the governments ideas that is not in the best interest of people whom just like to play games online.

[ZippyDSMlee]

I hate taxes just as much as almost anyone else, but I still do think that IRS has the right and the obligation to tax RMT. The deal is that nowadays a lot of people are making money from gaming alone, yet they aren't paying any income taxes. How is this fair for people that have normal jobs? Gold famers living in the western world still make use of the exact same services as anyone else who does have a normal job. So they ought to pay up, or shut up, basically.

If the IRS would only tax transactions being made, they still wouldn't be able to tax most of the RMTs. They would simply use shady companies based abroad to do the transactions for them. Of course, they could then apply the gambling law to RMT. But I am not really that confident that would work that well either. Taxing what you gain in-game would be the easiest way for the IRS to get people to pay up. Is that a good solution? No, it isn't. I would absolutely hate that solution because I would stop playing MMOs all together, if that would ever happen. But it is still a possibility that it may happen. And yet people that love RMT always claim that they don't ruin anything. But it seems that they are at the moment. They are giving the governments ideas that is not in the best interest of people whom just like to play games online.

pointless and unenforaceable

However I would like to see a tax/regulation on who the media mafia can harass when it comes to downloading IP/CP content for personal use bascily tax the offending items lightly and make downloading fully free and legal.
Sad as pointless sicne the goverment is the media mafias bitch....

[Beacon]

I hate taxes just as much as almost anyone else, but I still do think that IRS has the right and the obligation to tax RMT. The deal is that nowadays a lot of people are making money from gaming alone, yet they aren't paying any income taxes. How is this fair for people that have normal jobs? Gold famers living in the western world still make use of the exact same services as anyone else who does have a normal job. So they ought to pay up, or shut up, basically.

If the IRS would only tax transactions being made, they still wouldn't be able to tax most of the RMTs. They would simply use shady companies based abroad to do the transactions for them. Of course, they could then apply the gambling law to RMT. But I am not really that confident that would work that well either. Taxing what you gain in-game would be the easiest way for the IRS to get people to pay up. Is that a good solution? No, it isn't. I would absolutely hate that solution because I would stop playing MMOs all together, if that would ever happen. But it is still a possibility that it may happen. And yet people that love RMT always claim that they don't ruin anything. But it seems that they are at the moment. They are giving the governments ideas that is not in the best interest of people whom just like to play games online.

Yeah, trying to tax gold farmers would be difficult, because what they're doing, while not technically illegal, isn't exactly on the up-and-up.
However, taxing people who are just trying to play the game is ludicrous and unfair. Taxing someone for having a level 60 warrior with an epic mount, set 3 armor, and 1000 gold would be like taxing me for painting a picture which I hung on my wall.
Of course, as I've said, there are too many impracticalities to deal with. In game, that level 60 warrior with all his stuff and gold has a real world value of $0. Plus, in order to do this efficiently enough to make money, they'd need the full support of Blizzard, Sony, NC Soft, etc. and I can gaurantee you they wouldn't get it.

Actually, looking at it from a fundamental point of view, I oppose this idea even more. Taxes are an exchange. We pay the government money and they build/maintain roads, police the streets, etc., etc.
The government doesn't (nor can it) provide these services inside a game, so why should I pay taxes inside the game? If you think about it, I effectively pay taxes to Blizzard. And in return, they build/maintain quests, police the servers, etc., etc.