Virtual Worlds
According to this article, it looks like the ATO is considering placing a tax on virtual transactions that occur when you’re playing games online. For those of you who play games that fall under this category (yeah, you know who all you WoW players are), I’d like to hear your thoughts on this matter, and what effect (if any) it would have on you.
It is against the terms of use to exchange in-game items and currency for real-world money.
I don’t know if this affects anything though. The tax office seems to have no trouble taxing illegal income.
The law requires anyone who earns “income”, regardless whether it’s made in the real or virtual world, to be taxed. Australians who trade in the virtual world, but not declaring those revenues as income, are already breaking the law.
I guess the question is how do you value virtual currency when it’s forbidden to exchange it for real-world money…
Black-market rates, perhaps?
But is black market income taxable by definition?
WoW aside, Second Life currency can be traded for US dollars without restriction.
I guess while making a law about it seems like a good idea to the ATO, actually enforcing it is a different job entirely.
Kind of like the various copyright, privacy and Internet restrictions that get legislated every couple of years. They’re actual laws but they’re too hard too enforce.
In an unrelated matter, can you enable full-text feeds on your posts, Keith? I didn’t get around to reading this one for almost a month because I was offline when I first hit it in my aggregator.
Done.