Closed minds in the US – again.
So taxes might come to incomes of virtual worlds: “IRS taxation of online game virtual assets inevitable“.
I do understand that the core audience reading this article is from the States. But please, pretty please, can ‘journalist’ at least make a minimal effort to look at the bigger picture? How to achieve this on a global scale?
Do those writers actually have knowledge about that this internet thingy is something spread internationally? You know, connecting the world? This is Cnet we are talking about and not Little town in the prairy news.
Of course if you report on such an discussion you should report mostly about what was said etc. But would it kill you to add even a paragraph about the problem?
If those kind of discussions are started and focussed on US law alone, then we can start all over again once they discover that there is more to those virtual worlds done than just in the US!
How do tax payers in the US feel that their representatives spend time with doing things more than once instead of doing it right from the start? “Ups! Surprisingly our plan did not work, now we have to deal with those funny people from outside our world view. There seems to be money too …”
This is fricking 2006. It should have come also to the attention of some tax people that there is more than just their own country.
Especially when you want to collect their money too. Start thinking globally with local in mind and then make it local usable.
Tag(s): closed minds, international tax, second life, virtual worlds
Tags: european view, second life
Don’t worry, the tax lawyers are way ahead of you here. There’s a tax treaty between the US and Germany. If you earn income in the States, it’s taxed in the States, unless it’s also taxable in Germany. Then you pay whichever tax is greater (i.e. the German tax). So you’re screwed either way. :-)
Oh I know I will be paying tax somewhere (As I said on my German blog – there is a special paper form for income from renting out places which may be used for my second life landlord income as well.).
But just looking at the US tax will make them forget to make clever tax jurisdiction to get more out of it … then again, they will figure out one day. But why not right from the start?