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Taxing Virtual Gaming Assets
rijit writes " It appears very likely that taxation of online games assets is inevitable. Quote: 'That's because game publishers may well in the not too distant future have to send the forms — which individuals receive when earning nonemployee income from companies or institutions — to virtual world players engaging in transactions for valuable items like Ultima Online castles, EverQuest weapons or Second Life currency, even when those players don't convert the assets into cash.' "
The English, French, and American Revolutions were all instigated partly by new or opressive taxes
Not only is this a good idea, but this is what's happening now. Your virtual assets are worthless till you sell them for dollars. When you receive those dollars, that's a taxable event.
The IRS openly indicates in publication 525 that, "If you steal property, you must report its fair market value in your income in the year you steal it unless in the same year you return it to its rightful owner." The same applies to accepting bribes. You can read it here. Basically, it doesn't usually matter how you receive income, it's taxed.
Lot of people think income taxes are stupid...Mostly they are people who makes lots of money.
The alternative to income taxes would be federal sales tax, which is generally considered to put an undue tax burden on people who don't make a lot of money...eg, the rich man and the poor man buy a loaf of bread, and the 30 cents tax on the bread that goes to the Fed means nothing to the rich man, but means a lot to the poor man.
I suppose that you could add heavy taxes on luxury goods to "even out" the tax burden, but that's not exactly fair to the middle class (my new flat screen is gonna cost WHAT?!), and it puts luxury goods completely out of reach for poorer families.
Taxes are there to provide services for the whole of the population, whether it's paying for the military to protect our borders, and the police to protect our homes, or paying to clean up toxic waste spills, or paying for the interstate system, etc. People who demand "a la carte" government services always annoy the crap out of me, because they're always the people who refuse to see the point in anything that doesn't benefit them in a big tangible sort of way.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.