Congressional stupidity gets worse:US Congress steps into cyberspace
The Joint Economic Committee (JEC) of the US Congress has announced it is investigating the amount of commerce taking place in virtual game worlds....snip...
Although an economic value can be put on this trade because in-game currencies do have an equivalent real world value, committee chairman Jim Saxton said its investigation was not being carried out with a view to slapping taxes on this trade.First they came for poker players, but I was not a poker player... UPDATE: Neither Frist (retirement) and Leach (b*tch-slapped by his constituents) will be in the new Congress. Good riddance. Saxton weathered the purge, unfortunately.
"There is a concern that the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) might step forward with regulations that start taxing transactions that occur within virtual economies," said Mr Saxton. "This, I believe, would be a mistake."
Instead, he said, the investigation wanted to get a better understanding of where the line falls between taxable and non-taxable trade. Studies of game activity suggest the time and effort put into these online worlds has an economic impact equivalent to the GDP of Namibia.