Good old Wired ran an article on virtual taxation a few weeks ago.
Of course, I read a few comments on the desirability of taxing the so-called virtual economies but a point seems to me to be missing from them: I think we are so used at being taxed that we overlook the reason behind taxation in the first place.
Taxes are needed to provide the government with resources to pay for the services citizens use and need.
Now, let’s look at the situation: I earn money in, say, Second Life. To do so, I use SL’s own resources, plus a little telecommunication resources, plus my wn time and energy. We can agree that
- I should not be taxed for using my own time
- the telecom infrastructure, if public, is already paid for with my actual taxes, and if private, is funded by my telecom bill
- the virtual world’s resources, of course, are a service I pay to to its owners directly (as in the form of LindenDollar purchases in SL).
So, on what grounds is the government trying to tax me? Besides, just which government?
- the government who owns the land where I sit and type?
- the government who owns the land where SL’s servers sit?
- …?
I see a jurisdiction problem here, hairier than in the traditional hacker/smuggler/pornographer cases, because, in those cases, cyberspace is used to commit crimes in the “real” world. In the case of the “virtual” economies, everything takes place in cyberspace.
So, government may want to tax me on the same grounds as he taxes me for winning in a casino. Maybe.
And, unlike many other cases of the past, what is at stake here is not cyber rights, but good old cash. The unalienable right to the pursuit of (economic) happiness.
And I submit that at least one great nation was born out of tax revolt… (to be continued)
