Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: Feinder

I have no idea what the $2 is for. I know in some MMORPGs, there are middle-man "companies" (guilds) that act pass the item(s) from the seller to the buyer once payment is made.

1. Seller gives item to trusted middle-man.
2. Buyer makes payment.
3. Middle-man gives items to buyer.

Otherwise, payment could be made, and seller never gives up item.

The $2 could well be a payment to the middle-man guild. I have no idea tho. I never bought anything in-game (altho Dave, did you know our idiot-brother Paul used to buy stuff in AC2?).

-F-

quote:

ORIGINAL: wdolson

quote:

ORIGINAL: Kid

The whole idea of taxing virtual property is crap. Its just another way for the government to put their hand in your pocket. I say if they can start taxing virtual money, then we should be able to pay in virtual money. Either that or I'll stop playing altogether. Why don't they tax Monopoly money? I mean there are probably millions of Monopoly players, why doesn’t the IRS monitor each game and make players pay a tax each time they make a transaction. The world is becoming a crazy place.

The difference is that I have not heard of anybody trading Monopoly money for real money. When real money is exchanged for something, whether physically tangible, or virtual, the IRS wants a cut of the transaction. If a large enough number of people are trading something so that it has a fairly stable value, even if no US currency trades hands, the IRS assumes that something of value that could be traded for US currency has traded hands and they want a piece of it.

Technically, the IRS does not care if the income was legal or not. Drug dealers are just as subject to IRS rules as the rest of us. There have been cases where the IRS has slapped drug dealers with big bills when they showed up on the radar. As someone else pointed out, they eventually got Capone on tax evasion.

This trade in game assets is essentially a new form of software. We pay money for computer software. Some of it, such as Linux is free, and people pirate it, but most computer software is sold to customers. We are buying something virtual there too. You aren't paying much for the CD it comes on. A disc with an old game on it might be $10 in the bargain bin, but a disc of exactly the same quality with Adobe Photoshop on it would be several hundred dollars. You can even download the content after paying for it.

I hate the IRS just as much as every American. I can see where there are precedents for this though.

Bill

Former War in the Pacific Test Team Manager and Beta Tester for War in the East.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Kid
If they only want to tax e-items bought for real cash, I'm ok with that but I got the impression they wanted to tax in-game transactions of virtual money. Maybe I read it wrong.

quote:

They probably do want to tax people for in game transactions. If you barter with someone, the IRS wants to collect taxes on that, even though no cash changed hands because the items bartered could be traded for cash. It's screwy, and I don't think it's right, but there is a long precedent for it.