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Decision on Virtual Taxation Coming Soon
njkid1 writes with an article at GameDaily that once again tackles the thorny subject of taxing virtual goods. This month Congress is going to issue its report on the subject. What's in the report isn't certain as of yet, but their decision could have an enormous impact on the future of massively multiplayer games in the United States. From the article: "Economists estimate the sale of virtual goods grosses somewhere around $30 million in the United States alone, and up to $880 million worldwide, but no one knows for sure. With this economy's growth factor averaging about 10 to 15 percent every month, it's no wonder the government wants a piece of the action. Here's the bottom line: Any service or commodity bought or sold using real-world money is taxable. Therefore, transactions where players pay real money for in-game currency or virtual items are taxable events. It doesn't matter that the items don't exist in reality, since it doesn't take much creativity to argue that the sale is attached to a service, such as the act of acquiring the currency or item. This being the case, it was never a question of WOULD the U.S. government step in with taxes, but a question of WHEN and HOW."
"Vote for me, get a bigger [BLANK] check from the government!" (please fill in the blank with "welfare", "Social Security", "farm subsidy", "earned income tax credit", etc.)
And all you morons pining for "universal health care" are the worst of the lot. Do you dolts REALLY want the government deciding who gets health care and who doesn't? Do you REALLY want the corrupt likes of Ted Stevens and William Jefferson and Dianne Feinstein making the laws that decide who lives and dies?
And guess what? If you "clean house", the next government will be just as corrupt. Just like the last one was.
Unless of course you buy the crap that this Democratic-led House and Senate is the cleanest in history. Of course, if you buy that horseshit you also think Alcee Hastings deserves a committee chairmanship, wonder what all the fuss was about when a bill would have left thousands of employees uncovered by minimum wage laws for a large company headquarted in the Speaker's disctrict, and look up to a certain unindicted co-conspirator in ABSCAM, and agree with the Washington Post not to talk about a Senator on the Military Construction subcommittee who steered billions of dollars of business to her husband's companies...