Virtual Economies Attract Real-World Tax Attention
Virtual Economies Attract Real-World Tax Attention - Reuters via Yahoo! News.
The article looks to the virtual economies underlying virtual communities such as Second Life and World of Warcraft:
“You could argue that to a certain degree the law has fallen (behind) because you can have a virtual asset and virtual capital gains, but there’s no mechanism by which you’re taxed on this stuff,” [Dan Miller, senior economist for the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress] told Reuters in a telephone interview.
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Inside Second Life, users can buy and sell virtual objects from T-shirts to helicopters, develop virtual real estate, or hire out services ranging from architecture to exotic dancing. Up to $500,000 in user-to-user transactions take place every day, and the Second Life economy is growing by 10 to 15 percent a month.
“Ownership, property rights, all that stuff needs to be decided. There’s just too much money floating around,” said game designer Sam Lewis, who trained as an economist and has worked on games such as Star Wars Galaxies. He is currently lead designer for an upcoming game from Cartoon Network.
This is becoming such an important topic that Reuters has even opened up a Second Life virtual news bureau: http://secondlife.reuters.com
Politicians host community meetings. People advertise within the community. There is an exchange rate for the Linden dollar (as of Oct. 16, 2006 the exchange rate is L$243/USD). Business and progress are bustling in the virtual space.