January 17, 2006

Are Virtual Assets Taxable?

The weapons, armor and gold pieces from online games are worth millions in real dollars. This article raises an interesting question - How much of a share will the IRS want?

"From the standpoint of economic theory... there's no fundamental distinction between selling euros and buying magic wands," said Ted Castronova, an expert on virtual economies and an associate professor of telecommunications at the University of Indiana at Bloomington. "They carry value with them. If you're going to tax exchanges in the real world, you've got to tax exchanges in the virtual world, in economic theory."

Posted by Jorgen Thelin at January 17, 2006 02:29 PM