Get ready for three acronyms in one sentence! According to a recent report on a Korean news site translated by blogger IM69, Korea's National Tax Service (NTS), their equivalent of the IRS, has begun charging value-added tax (VAT) on real-money transactions (RMT) in virtual worlds.
The NTS has begun adding the new tax automatically to all virtual transactions involving real money as of July 1st, says the report, translated as follows:
Sellers who do between 6 and 12 million won ($6,500 - $13,000)/half year in business will have VAT auto applied by transaction's middle-man.Sellers who do more than 12 million won/half year in business will need a business license and will pay the tax by themselves.
“NTS would be able to track all transactions for taxation of virtual items,” Mr. Choi, an NTS official said-- apparently, RMT mediators have agreed to share their clients' transaction details with authorities.
“This is not about defining RMT legal/illegal; we don’t see any contradictory facts to Amendment for Game Industry Promoting Law - we are not about to judge if RMT is legal or not,” he added.
The interesting complication comes in when you take note of the fact that, according to the report, many online games stipulate in their terms of service that in-game goods and currency are actually property of the developers, not the users. Thus far, the industry has yet to clarify its stance on the issue, so it's still unclear who, exactly, will be legally responsible for actually paying the tax.
[Via Next-Gen.biz]
