The Joint Economic Committee of Congress is studying the trading that takes place in the virtual economies of MMORPG’s. According to a JEC statement , “Clearly, virtual economies represent an area where technology has outpaced the law. The goal of the forthcoming JEC study is to help lawmakers understand the issues involved and head off any premature attempt to impose a tax on virtual economies.”
So, and bear with me for a minute here, they are studying online economies so that there is not any premature taxation attempts? Since Congress is the only branch of government with the ability to impose taxes, I would think the ability to not tax them should be pretty straightforward. Also, with the massive deficits they have run up spending hundreds of millions of dollars on individual projects like building a bridge in Alaska to serve 50 people, they would seem to have more of a desire to look for new sources of revenue than ways to cut spending. It seems disingenuous at best to think that they are looking at this in order to stave off those evil people who would look to tax something like this.
Bottom line, with the massive amounts of currency traded in these games, currencies that have real world cash value, I believe they are looking to do nothing less than take advantage of another opportunity to tap another source of revenue. It seems ridiculous to me and probably any other sane person, Congress’ denials aside, that there is any other purpose in this. The only premature tax they are most likely looking to avoid is one that does not maximize their ability to spend ever more money on pork.
