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Tip.It Times Presents: Tax Collection ���¢�¢â�š�¬�¢â�¬�� A New RuneScape...


Kiara_Kat

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A good read :D i do like my Editor editorials

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Economics and money is for me an interesting part of RS; the fact that the real life economies are taking an interest just goes to show how much gaming, especially online has grown in the recent years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm not sure i agree with the "highway robbery" view of taxation, it being a necessary part of a healthy country, but if mishandled then yes i suppose it is.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the case of this Second Life game, where it is possible to earn items that can be traded legally for cash, i personally would expect it to be lumped in with windfall taxes similar to those who win masses on lotteries, horse racing, poker etc as they are all the same; playing a game of luck/skill for capital gain and should be thusly taxed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I apologise for my kinda capitalist views, but im going to do a law degree - moneys important :lol:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

P.S. the British IRS is correctly known as H.M (her majesty's) Customs and Revenue

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The Editor in his Rant against tax system completely missed two very important points.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First of all, if you sell something in real world for real world money, you're required to report that income and pay taxes. Or if you're paid for doing some job. So minors pay taxes on money they earned just like adoults do [or you think that minors who are professional actors or athlets don't pay taxes on their earnings?].

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Second, what IRS consider taxing is REAL LIFE money gained by selling in-game items [or even accounts] through E-bay or some other means. Not in-game money earned by selling items within RS or any other MMO. The only thing that IRS [and all the other tax collectors around the world, don't kid yourself] consider taxing are trades which happen in Real Life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Third, determining how much is some item worth is not what IRS is concerned and would bother with. If someone, for example, sell Phat set for 1000$ real money on E-bay, IRS would tax those 1000$ income and not bother at all how much is that Phat set worth in-game.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now, considering that selling in-game items for real life money is against the rules of RS, there is no fear for us who play RS [other than those scammers and authoers who sell in-game items and gold for $, and they deserve to be taxed]. But it would be a hit [how big would depend on how many tax collecting agency's around the world start taxing such sales] for those MMO's who do allow real life sales of in-game money, items and accounts for Real Life money.

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i really didnt understand what was going on in tis thread i got most of what the editor talked about but ya still confusing but very interesting

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

diddo... does this mean we'll have to pay rs money or real money?

 

 

 

Neither. You'd only have to pay real money if you sell something over E-bay or by some other mean for real money. All the trades that happen in-game for in-game money will not be taxed.

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wow ed u scared me for sec about the taxes. but its better than making me mad like u did last article (net zero and stand alone skill my foot)

Proud member of 3 runescape fansites- tip.it, zybez, and runehq (tho the runehq forums were a little wierd to navigate so i purposefully forgot my account name and password for it)

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Yes... I don't believe that that should happen, what would the IRS do, come to your house and audit your runescape account?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

anyway, a thumping good article... editor, you have done it again! <3:

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Noted raw mackerel drop... Wtfh?

Always buying: Watermelon seeds, 2K each. Strawberry seeds, 800 each. Contact Via PM on forums.

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I agree with Scudman, this is a poor article and below Tip.it standard. Which makes it two out of a last three.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As for people saying that Jagex is UK based... that is irrelevant. What is relevant is that E-bay is US based, and traded made through it would be the ones that will be taxed.

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and this is about runescape how? I had no idea what this what about (mainly because I don't pay taxes). :pray: Lol I hope I'm on the bad list too. \'

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3/10, sorry it wasn't really about rs.

I would put a cool link here but I don't know how.

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the Editer wrote:

 

 

 

...Needless to say, Your Humble Editor is in total disagreement with this theory. I'm not going to bore you all with an erudite philosophical discussion of the morality of taxation, at least not unless you ask me to, that's not appropriate to this column.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

please do i'd enjoy hearing it ,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and i need some words to fill in the the 30 minute speach limit on the statment im preparing should the irs try to tax runescape and should my insuing lawsuit on the behalf of jagex reach the supreme courtreach the supreme court.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ps: id like to say what the irs can do with the part of the body i mistake

 

 

 

for their face for but i cant say that here

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pss: if you want to talk to me about flaming and bad and impolite language meet me in the parking lot of THE toysto"R"e cough cough that i work at!!!!

[hide=]

Wow... I just scanned it with my new high tech program called "common sense" and it detected a scam.

Some people just shouldn't be allowed to breed.

Gee, for someone with "billions and billions on multiple accounts", you sure whine a lot.
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Such a daring topic for the tip.it times for once, what a miracle!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Having read the article this is about and tons of different articles on this and related subjects and considering my own background I obviously have a strong opinion on this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think "my humble editor" fails to see the point why the IRS is interested in potentially taxing MMOG income, so let me start by giving a quite astounding quote to put it all in a better perspective:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some experts believe that the market for virtual assets will overcome the primary marketÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Ã
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I think they only way they would have any leg to stand on with a tax argument would be if jagex sold in game money for cash and also accepted in game money for which they paid cash back.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So for example you could buy money from them at $10 per million but you could also sell money to them for $7 per million.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If people were using the game as a tool to make money in this way, then yes they could justify a taxable income. However jagex doesnt nor will they in the future (or so they say) ever offer this kind of option. So we are safe.

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Every one is overlooking the fact Jagex is british based - for the IRS would get involved with a british company #-o .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I found this article poor, to be honest. <.<

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Everyone is overlooking the fact Jagex is british? Did you read the article at all? Its clearly stated right in there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The article wasnt poor at all.

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thank goodness that will never happen. plus, all the more reason to hate those rotten p.o.s. macro farmers.

 

 

 

Luckily for me, I can spot communism from a mile away, even in online games.
and that has... what to do with this whole discussion? do you know what communism is? or, if this was an attempt at a joke, how humor works?

proud quest cape owner

here's my first post on the TIF (scroll to the bottom)

feel free to pm me, but do make sure that i know you're a Tip.It user (in other words, give me a HYT)

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I agree with Scudman, this is a poor article and below Tip.it standard. Which makes it two out of a last three.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As for people saying that Jagex is UK based... that is irrelevant. What is relevant is that E-bay is US based, and traded made through it would be the ones that will be taxed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

E-bay is not completely US based. Other countries, like te UK, have their own subsidiaries of E-Bay. This is an attempt to prevent country specific illegal trading, for example it is illegal to sell certain drugs in the UK, so thise adverts are banned from the UK based E-bay.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now, the IRS could get their information from the US E-Bay and tax accordingly, however all people have to do is sell on other E-bay sites, or any other site for that matter and their income becomes untracable. This the the beauty and danger of the internet, it is so annonymous.

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To clear up a few things here:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It doesn't matter what age you are, if you make income in the US, you are required to pay income tax on it, no matter how you get that income. Obviously there are many exceptions to that basic rule in the hundreds of pages of tax codes, but the fact remains that a 15 year old kid has to pay taxes if he earns money. Now, unless he is making a ridiculous amount of money for a 15 year old, chances are good that he won't have to pay income tax at all as the standard deduction will more than cover his tax liability. But he still has to report his income to the IRS, and can be subject to income taxation if he makes enough money.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What this basically means is that, if you make a profit off of an MMORPG, you must report it to the US government if you reside in the US. This would include RS, even though it is against the game rules. So techincally, a macroer living in the US who sells RS coins for real life money is breaking US tax laws by not reporting that income to the government.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

However, the article completely misses the point of US tax laws. Making money in RS for most of us is not taxable income, since we aren't selling our in-game resources for real life money. RS users who don't break these rules aren't making an income and can't be taxed. This would be much more relevant to games that encourage real-life trading, and likely the US government would want the people running the real-life marketplaces for online game stuff to monitor transactions, not the people running the game itself. All of this, of course, is irrelevant to Jagex for the most part.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One way Jagex could be impacted would be the US government requiring them to report all known information about anyone caught macroing to the government, for investigation of possible sales for real-world profit. But there is no way the US government can tax purely in-game trades.

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Next up: how would you calculate the value of player assets? There are 3 values which items in RuneScape have: low level alchemy, high level alchemy (both of which are tied to shop values) and the going rate between players. f you sell a party hat to a store, or accidentally alch it, you get about 1GP.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I found a spelling mistake (o my gosh). Nothing bad just pointing that out o and btw its *if*.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nice article once again, I enjoy it a lot and hope they don't tax it. The price is just right. Um who cares if its UK based its also being used in the US. Its just going to be an import tax thing if they are really making a law/tax on it.

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i dont honestly understand the point of the argument. i tried reading other peoples responses in this thread, however no light has been shed on the article.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

my initial understanding is that the article is a discussion of the irs' interesting in taxing actions within the game. um, wtf? this just confused me terribly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the other point i got out of it was taxing real life trades that originate from online games (eg. selling rs gold for rl currency). this idea does not apply to rs (theoretically) as selling in-game items is illegal. if jagex were to open a shop where someone could buy rs from jagex, then that would be another issue.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and why bring the irs into this? jagex is a british-based company, and that just confused things even further.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

question: are things like ebay taxed? if so, then tax agencies would have a genuine interest in these things. if not, then they are probing into unchartered territory. with the growing nature of the internet, it is no surprise that there is growing interest in the money generated from interactions over it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

other than that, i really didnt enjoy this article. it was well written, but the fact that there are very weak links to runescape ruined it a tad.

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This article unnecessarily criticizes the IRS and shows a clear lack of understanding of the US tax system. I'd like to make something perfectly clear:

 

 

 

 

 

 

The IRS does not decide who or what gets taxed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The purpose to of the IRS is to administer and enforce the US tax laws that are passed by Congress.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The United States Congress decides federal tax law.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So the IRS can find all kinds of taxing interesting, but the fact is that they can't change the legislature, they can only enforce the law that is provided for them. It's a common misconception that the IRS is evil because they gather money that you've earned for the government, but they're only doing their jobs. They aren't collecting money for themselves or even by means that they've decided.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All this publicity has resulted in some overpaid "policy wonk" proposing that income gained in online games should be subject to real world taxes. The IRS, needless to say, finds this proposal "interesting ". This is a bad sign. It's always a bad sign when the IRS gets interested in something or someone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'd first like to express interest in the sources that say the IRS is interested in taxing online games. I suspect that it may be some sensationalist nonsense from people who are capitalizing on the general public loathing of the IRS to promote a message that is sickeningly distorted as presented in this editorial. "It's always a bad sign when the IRS gets interested in something or someone." Really? Funny. The IRS is a major source of revenue for the United States government and helps provide for such programs as: affordable public education, public housing for the poor, national defense, development of cities and highways, medical programs, and more.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Would you like to provide for all those things out of your own pocket? I didn't think so. And if you are still going to criticize taxes, don't yell at the IRS, yell at your Representative and Senator who is passing or petitioning for these tax laws.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I thought it was kind of funny that the Editor went on to debunk the obvious flaws with taxing Runescape gains, as if the legislators who are in charge of creating these laws are blind to such obvious shortcomings in this form of taxation. It's a logic fallacy known as the Straw Man. In this fallacy, the arguing party sets up a position that's easy to refute and then attributes it to the opposing party. I have seen nothing that suggests Congress is taking this angle seriously, and until a reputable source states that claim, I think this should be chalked up to sensationalist nonsense. The editor is right, this is a hare-brained scheme, however I think the ridiculousness is matched by the anger and frustration with regards to an idea seemingly pulled from thin air, supposedly being eyed by a group that can't act on their alleged interests anyway.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My opinion: incredibly poor article.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My suggestion: write an editorial on a more appropriate, halfway believable concept, or at least provide some background for these defamatory accusations.

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Oddfaery2? :P we all know your a smithing beast. Emote pl0x? Heh.. Anyways!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I read the article, I was thinking.. "Umm.." :oops: I'm not in Economics Class.. So it's kind of hard to understand all that taxing crap. All I know is that you give Church money - it's taken off your taxes. :oops:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But seeing on how I suck with taxes, I'll give it a 10/10

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