Amen to Phoenix2Raven! A vicious circle of monetary loss caused by politicians whose need to be elected is a conflict of interest to those they are representing. Politicians who are acting in their own best interest instead of the interests of their constituency ( us ). Screw them all!

I remember when I did tax as part of an accounting course several years ago that there were certain criteria required to differentiate between a hobby that derived income, and a business venture. (In Australia, mind you). I imagine the same would apply here. They would only be taxing Americans who are actively attempting to make money from their chosen game. At least, one would hope so.

You people don't seem to get it, there already is a way and means of taxing individuals in the USA who make real-world money from selling virtual goods. It's called EARNED INCOME. If you sell T-shirts on the side of the road, you must pay earned income taxes at the end of the year. You may also have to give your state sales tax retroactively. We don't need another superfluous addition to the tax code. Earned Income tax already covers the bases here. Maybe if congress could get their act together, stop wasting tax dollars on pork projects, they wouldn't have to scheme up new ways to add additional tax codes.

i like knowing this doesn't effect me too much (cause im in Canada). but this is absurd. this is like making kindergartners pay per hour to use jungle gyms at school. its illogical and unethical. all u will do is drive people off it in droves. the very day this tax(es) comer around i can be pretty sure that $1.16 million market will all but dwindle away. I may not live or know anything about the government taxation policies in the U.S. but i can be fairly certain no one wants more taxes then they already have. like come on people MMO's and on-line rpg's are supposed to be fun. im sure this will go over well in the eyes of foreign nations. taxing people for having fun, what a stupid concept.

The issue with age limits ... the government should not pose laws that are based on age. This is called age distrimination and is no different then discrimination based on race. This means that anyone that is physically capable can vote, drink, smoke, and say whatever one wishes to. Its a right that all American Citizens have and no law should strip that away. Now if a company wants to limit their content to people based on age, color, or creed, then thats up to them. They have the freedom to do so. Only companies that are funded by the US government are held to the same discrimination laws as the US government. Meaning, if a movie theatre doesn't want to admit a person based on age, sex, race, or whatever else criteria they have (no shirt), its perfictly legal.

Basicly if they did tax virtual goods it would most likely be a sales tax which would be hard to determine. Do they base the tax off the state you are in? The state the server is in? The state the game company is in? The state the seller is in? If the seller and buyer are in defferent states does sales tax get charged and if so at what rate? This is hard for them to figure out when you're buying real things from Amazon, this would be near impossible for virtual goods Additionally the idea of taxing virtual property makes no sense with the sole exception of taxing someone who makes a living selling gold (IGE) for the income they make from that endeavor. Yes if you make money selling gold you should be taxed just like someone who makes money selling Tshirts or hamburgers. This would not be a per transaction tax or anything but rather an income tax on the corp and the individual just like everyone else pays. 200 mil selling gold to impatient americans-100 mil spent buying gold from farmers-50 mil operating costs=50 mil profit on which IGE is taxed. In terms of any kind of property tax for virtual land or tax on in game transactions in second life....any of that is very very stupid. The only time taxation should come into play is when actions pass over into the real world in a meaningful way like gold selling for dollars. Someone down there said that limiting freedom of speech on behalf of kids is OK. No its not, the idea that a kid of 10 isn't ready to see something and a kid of 17 is ready is an arbitrary and rather stupid distinction. Outside of hard core bestiality being shown to 5 year olds I think that anything should be OK for younger kids to see and all ratings should be abolished. In many European countries you can see nudity and sex on TV (hardcore violence which is AOK in america not so much) and their kids come out alright in fact oftentimes smarter then we do on average. They can also drink much earlier even before they're teenagers in France and once again, they come out alright. Restricting access is stupid and unnecessary.

well, how else are we going to pay for Iraq? oh, SeattleTime or SeattlePI had an article about the CAD and USD being equal, and how Canadian shoppers are coming down to take advantage of the exchange rates, so maybe this is a move to strengthen the economy, 'cause heaven forbid 10 years from now Canadians should ever travel to north border US towns to watch a donkey show

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this is retarded. next theyll tax you for the air you breath. theyll break it down by average amount of breaths per minute based on your size so large people and people with asmtha will be most affected. Gym membership costs will skyrocket to cover the overhead for additional air tax minumums theyll pay for all those people working out. Birth rates will drop as fewer people are doing it and all over america charities will close as triatholons and walkathons are cancelled. Go fix something meaningful you idiots. God i hate you sometimes america.

This is deep and wrong.. Taxation on virtual goods, next thing we know they will tax us for thinking. And Jd1680a, just because minors are already suppressed and mislead by old laws and traditions it's not justified to pass further laws restricting their rights as human beings.

After reading through serveral of the comments here it is obvious that many don't understand the issue. The taxation would be on those that fork over REAL MONEY for virtual stuff. This is aimed at companies like the gold sellers for games like WOW and LOTRO. The gold seller would be the one having the tax collected from them. However, in fact, the gold buyer will actually be the one taxed as they are the one buying the gold in the first place. Just owning virtual anything will not get you taxed unless you purchase it with real hard currency. If you pay in game gold for that shield...no tax. If you hand over ten U.S. dollars for that same shield there would be a tax placed upon the seller of the shield (paid by the buyer of course).

Fastest way to make the USA the #1 country for NOT having any game servers hosted here ... taxation on virtual property.

Does this mean a whole slew of new 'Virtual Rights' laws coming into place? If a player in a PvP game kills another player, will they be brought up on the charge of 'Virtual Murder'?

Limiting mature games to kids who are too young to play it isnt against freedom of speech. Same sense was done with R rated movies and X rated material for people who are too young to view them.

Tax virtual property? What kind of stupid s&@t is this? Gamers are gonna have to pay GP on their virtual property? I'd have to pay X amount of gold for my LoTR toons' home and equipment? I'd have to give a certain percentage of my earned gold to the IRS? For what? So they could re-sell it for real money?

and the esa has "no comment" WTF!!!

whoa, they're gonna tax me then use the tax money to pay politicians to go to court to take away games they feel are inapropriate which inevitably get shut down by the judge, though knowing this these sh*t for brain politicians still do it. so basically money they take from me for a virtual property is used to either get rid of games or end up being spent on something that goes nowhere thereby giving nothing as a result. so taxpayers we're getting shank worst then a gtaIV ho with nothing to show for in the end!!!

"An ESA representative would not comment on the group's stance toward virtual property taxation." Hmm..., Why so coy? If the ESA has a stance, why not communicate it? Sounds like 1. they haven't thought it through; 2. there's disagreement among their members; 3. they're taking a wait-and-see approach to the issue; or 4. the "ESA representative" didn't know the Alliance's stance. The likely reason is probably #4 -- the person didn't want to expose his/her ignorance, though a simple "I'm not sure of the details on that, but I'll find out and get back to you." response would have been classier and more professional than a curt "no comment."

omg

I really doubt they would make you pay taxes on the theoretical value of items that you could conceivably sell. That'd be like taxing someone's valuable stamp collection. (Can that do that? I'm not a legal expert.) To treat property in Second Life the same as real property is stupid. It's called "real estate" for a reason. Virtual property is, what, "fake estate"? Just because some guy with too much money wants to spend $1000 for someone's game character doesn't mean that all these video games now have some inherent value. I can imagine a kid opening a new pack of Yugi Oh cards and an IRS agent wanting to tax him because he found a rare card that would potentially be valuable on ebay.

It's actually kind of funny because according to the TOS of WoW we don't own any of that virtual property. So, it's really all blizz's tax obligation, not ours.

This is the stupidest thing I have ever heard

So in other words we're not to level up our characters unless we want to be taxed on having a character that can sell for X amount on Ebay (even if we have no intention on selling it), so heaven forbid we should ever engage in combat, or find items around the word that could also be of value... so basically we spend money every month to walk around the world an enjoy the view; frak that!! And what if as a consequence of virtual self-defense we kill something and level up; should the player be at fault. Well, maybe the government will find middleground; we'll end up paying for virtual assets with virtual gold... that I can live with... nah, it's my gold!!

so they tax me for something that isn't real? maybe if it was a 3-d world where it was like you were actually there, but not today... bull****

First our government uses our tax dollars to give us the internet, then it makes us pay for it, now it wants us to be liable for game items that we may own or sell or buy online? Not that I would ever fork over any money ever for an in-game item, but please you're in my TV, you're in my textbooks, you're in my grocery stores, stay the hell out of my video games!!!!

this is as ridiculous as taxing that guy who caught that Really Important Baseball. i understand the principle, but what's next? taxing lemonade stands?

In-game taxation?... For some reason I don't know how to immediately feel, it's all a little complex.

Great...now they're going to physically tax me for how much influence I made in City of Heroes? Bull****!

I've read about this before. And they don't just want to tax gold-sellers. No no. It kind of works like this: You have 500 gold. People are selling gold on websites for (I don't know) $10/100G. Something like that. That means that gold is VALUED at that rate. The in-game property has a value. That means that they don't care if you sell it or not. You have it, and they consider it an asset, and assets are taxable. Personally, I don't think they could get away with something like that.

Good, the government needs more money.

Nothing is certain but death and taxes...

i think you should tax the love out of people who actually buy in game items... silly people.

You pay sales tax when you buy the game to start with. If a company or person makes money on a sale, that's taxable. That is what proponents will argue, and I think it makes sense. Gov's gotta get it's money from someplace. I think it's best to tax people who obviously have extra money to spend, as opposed to taxing "essential" items.

Are they saying they will tax gold farmers, Second Lifers, and people who illegealy(by the contract of the games) sell weapons, amour and stuff? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That is HILARIOUS!!! Good for them. Losers all anyways. Gold farmers suck, Second life sucks and people who have to buy high level equipment in game like World of WarCraft suck too! Good luck on collecting taxes on International sales though.

I dont trust either side of that particular debate to be honest.

So will this hurt people with virtual assets that don't care to sell them on Ebay? Can states that charge property tax take virtual assets into consideration? If that's what they're aiming for, then that's bullcrap. They should just worry about taxing the exchanges at best, an nothing more.