WoW Tax

[MoocherChiken]

Only the US Government could think of something THIS stupid.

http://secondlife.reuters.com/stories/2006/10/15/us-congress-launchs-probe-into-virtual-economies/

[Stolen Chiken]

that is the dumbest fawking thing Ive ever seen.. Clepto and I are currently discussing it.. he's trying to talk me into the logic of it.. nope, nope. Cant see it as anything other than retarded.

[Clepto Chiken]

Oh Yea Stolen just showed this too me.
You know if they start taxing my WoW, I am gonna start writing it on our taxes as a business anger management classes.

[SPRINGCHIKEN]

well u no its just that bush is not geting a nuff cash from the oil companys.
they no hes on the the out so the cut back on his kickback.....

[Stolen Chiken]

sure, Springy, go for the easy target.. I aint saying he's the best President ever, but come on, do you really think he even KNOWS what WoW is? Afterall, it was Dan Q who invented the internet, I dont think Georgie knows how it works, bless his heart. He just doesnt strike me as the techie type. Altho, not knowing anything about a subject, doesnt keep people from making dumb ass comments. ("I've always LOVED New York, ever since the Yankees won the Superbowl!! ~Dilary Rodham)

[LoneStarChiken]

Afterall, it was Dan Q who invented the internet


Hmmm... and I always thought it was Al "Big Mac" Gore that invented the Internet.

[Stolen Chiken]

hell I dont know, it was one of the idiots..probably was Al Gore. but Dan Q said alot of stupid stuff too..

[MoocherChiken]

Al Gore invented the Intraweb, Innernet, or that web thingy.

Back on topic:
The problem is that the money grubbing jerks in D.C. are starting to try and tax POTENTIAL income. This means that anything you have or have made that COULD be of value needs to be taxed. The morons are jumping the gun on this one. You can't tax something that is only POTENTIAL income, especially if it's NOT your property.

If you read all the WoW agreements, you will see that you don't actually own anything, you don't have any rights to the stuff you acquire, you are just using Blizzard's service. This means that you don't own anything in WoW. Now apply this to the current topic and you see how moronic this idea is. How the HELL can you be taxed for something you don't even legally own?

[Stolen Chiken]

amen brother Moocher!

[SmuttyChiken]

So they TAX Blizzard for assets that the players own and could potentially sell ... that would be the go ... otherwise they can't tax all those little Chinamen and brother Asians that spend their whole life on the internet playing games to build characters to sell ... not to mention all the other players in the world ... no there is a consept I am sure the boys on your Capital Hill would contemplate ... TAX THE WHOLE FAWKING WORLD ...

[Clepto Chiken]

Scary thing is once upon a many years ago this actually how the United States taxed people. They would come into your home or business see what you owned and tax you for it.

[A-La-KingChiken]

"...If you drive a car, I'll tax the street. If you try to sit, I'll tax your seat. If you get too cold, I'll tax the heat. If you take a walk, I'll tax your feet..."

[Minichiken]

wow that is so fawkin gay. If they start trying to tax me for my hundreds of millions of isk i have on eve i swear im moving to Iceland

[NemesisChiken]

"...If you drive a car, I'll tax the street. If you try to sit, I'll tax your seat. If you get too cold, I'll tax the heat. If you take a walk, I'll tax your feet..."
lol ... good call.... well im the tax man.....wooo, the tax maaaan...

Don't get me wrong, but just to play devils advocate and I always like a good beating, I don't think the IRS is that far out of line. The intrinsic objective of our taxation is to recovery the expenses of the government from the civilian population in some fair and equitable way. Virtual assets in the general sense is nothing new. The money in your pocket became a real world example of that when we moved off the gold standard here in the US. Its just paper and metal now. The value is in the number or the word (a virtual concept) that is imprinted on it. Whether you hold it in your hand or in a virtual bank account really should make no difference now. You're actual bank accounts and civil records are stored on computers and they are about as real as it gets.

See I'm a programmer by profession, so I have a bit of a different perspective than most (also just being weird skews things a bit too - LOL) What most people see as 'virtual reality', I just look at as computer system with unique interfaces to meet a design requirement. Where most peeps percieve point and click, I see nothing mystical going on there, just cursor movements and event triggers. Whether that systems' function is primarily of entertainment value or building cars for example, is of little difference to me ... its still all just programs with different objectives. There is nothing virtual about it - we (which are real) use computers to access other computers (which are real) running systems (which are real programs) to interact and manipulate (no different than the real world) our environment. That the effect of those actions are recorded on computer drives (which are real) in some disk farm should make no difference.

As a programmer, I can potential create significant real-world value out of nothing but this electronic 'virtual world' and today I would get taxed if any real-world currency was received on whatever I delivered to someone. Why is it I shouldn't be taxed if I were to get paid in a manner (which in the real world is sometimes called bartering) whereby I received someone's electronic property ?

Now that being said, I think that trying to tax gaming systems is ludicrious at this point of our information age evolution, but I can see where some smakards are gonna leverage and exploit this to the point that it will have to be addressed through legislation. With the nature of the human race, its inevitable unfortunately.