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ordnance_qf_17_pounder, do games w EU tax officials confront the most pressing legal question of our time: If you sell RuneScape gold to someone and they use it to buy a magic sword, do you still have to pay taxes?

Can I get taxed if I buy a gf for 25k?

SkunkWorkz, (edited )

Yeah you pay VAT because you are buying a service. But your “gf” has to collect it and pay it to the tax agency.

meldrik,

You don’t pay VAT on a personal transaction though. But the girlfriend would probably have to pay income tax.

daniskarma,

We should know if the gf is selling herself as a second hand sale or if it’s a recurring economic activity. If so, she should register in VAT and collect it.

(Legality of that economic activity may differ by country)

ViatorOmnium,

Depending on the country, and depending on the gift, yes. Though it’s mostly not enforced.

Gonzako, do games w EU tax officials confront the most pressing legal question of our time: If you sell RuneScape gold to someone and they use it to buy a magic sword, do you still have to pay taxes?

Damn, good use of their time! Not going after trillionaries, no.

SkunkWorkz, (edited ) do games w EU tax officials confront the most pressing legal question of our time: If you sell RuneScape gold to someone and they use it to buy a magic sword, do you still have to pay taxes?

Yeah seems like the writer of the PC Gamer article doesn’t understand what VAT is.

To laymen like you and I, this situation probably seems pretty open and shut. If you make money on something, you pay taxes on it.

Yeah VAT is not a tax on money made. VAT is a tax that is applied to a transaction for goods and service between a business and a consumer. VAT is a tax that the consumer pays. The business only collects it and has the obligation to pay it to the tax services. So even if a business makes zero profit they still need to pay the VAT they collected.

The question here was if RuneScape gold is a product or if it is legal tender. If it was legal tender then you don’t pay VAT on it, similar to when if you trade one currency to another VAT is not applied.

MBech,

If Runescape gold is legal tender, do I have to pay taxes on my earnings from my Zulrah grind?

SkunkWorkz,

Probably income tax or a gambling tax like what you’d pay if you win money one a game show. But there is a threshold, so tax free for small earnings.

commiunism,

Yeah, that’s why they added the GE tax

brsrklf,

The question here was if RuneScape gold is a product or if it is legal tender. If it was legal tender then you don’t pay VAT on it, similar to when if you trade one currency to another VAT is not applied.

Even if they went that way (good luck with that), doesn’t that mean farming gold regularly and for profit should still be registered as a professional activity? Or at least the result of it declared as revenue?

I don’t think they want that.

SkunkWorkz,

Of course he still needs to pay income tax. But that’s something else from VAT.

Dyskolos,

Speaks greatly for the quality of pcgamer. Guess the schools in the USA aren’t the very best.

mushroomman_toad,

to be fair, I don’t think any US state has VAT.

Dyskolos,

AFAIK they do? Different even in every state.

elephantium,
@elephantium@lemmy.world avatar

Many US states have sales tax, but I don’t think it counts as VAT.

Dyskolos,

Ah right, just a sales-tax. I should’ve shut up 😁

Thorry,

The real genius behind VAT is that it isn’t just applied to transactions between business and consumer, but to all transactions. The rule is normally very simple, it’s applied to all transactions, with few exceptions. The rate can vary, but those rules are also usually very simple. The trick is: When a business has a transaction with another business, VAT is still applied, but the selling party has to levy the tax and forward it to the government and the purchasing party can ask the government to give back the tax they paid on the transaction.

This may seem a bit convoluted, where the tax goes through the government only to end up back in the business. But this ensures the tax is applied always. Normally a profitable company would sell their products for more than the components they purchased. The difference between these two is the value added. And by getting back less from the purchases as what they have to pay for sales, the tax is only applied to the value added. And for consumers it functions as a sales tax, being applied to all transactions and no way around it.

This system is way harder to mess with than any other form of sales tax. The rules are simple with few exceptions and thus very easy to reinforce. It’s also a more fair system, where each party in the chain pays a part instead of the consumer paying for all of it.

In the end the consumer pays most, but as the taxes are supposed to be used to make their lives better, it seems like a fair deal? Now if you have a government that’s more about filling their own pockets than actually doing what they need to do to improve the lives of the people living there, well then you are going to have a bad day. But that doesn’t happen in civilized countries right?

Tetsuo,

VAT fraud is harder but my god when some people achieved it they pretty much unlocked a money spawn glitch IRL…

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_trader_fraud?wprov=…

Thorry,

Yeah EU VAT opened up a whole can of issues. It’s super complicated and annoying, with all sorts of weird exceptions. The exact opposite of what VAT was supposed to be. EU countries should have just gotten their shit together instead of this patch work.

I’ve actually seen that fraud in action. People used to ship around huge amounts of phones and CPUs, because they were high value, but took up very little room. A truck full of pallets of tray CPUs could be worth a huge amount.

I think now most of the holes are patched. But for a while there were special rules surrounding phones and CPUs just because they were often used in the fraud scheme.

UltraGiGaGigantic, do games w EU tax officials confront the most pressing legal question of our time: If you sell RuneScape gold to someone and they use it to buy a magic sword, do you still have to pay taxes?
@UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml avatar
yetAnotherUser,

Earning 400,000€ in two years makes you part of the 1% though?? Where else would this guy be? Upper middle class?

Dasus, (edited )
@Dasus@lemmy.world avatar

Okay that’s not nothing but 200 000€ / year is hardly top 1% in EU, I think.

This is what slop gave me:

Based on available data on income distribution in Europe, a rough estimate for a gross annual individual salary to be in the top 1% across the EU would likely fall above €200,000.

When I asked how much you’d need to make in a year to be in EU top 1%. Didn’t even mention 200 000.

So yeah upper class but not necessarily top 1%. In Lithuania they’re probably top1% but not on the EU level.

Sorry for being pedantic, you were close enough tho

yetAnotherUser,

According to the German (I have not found an EU equivalent) office for statistics, you are part of the top 1% of full-time workers if you earn >213,286€ per year:

www.destatis.de/DE/Presse/…/PD25_134_621.html

Sure, this doesn’t include billionaires who don’t work but there just aren’t enough of them to matter. It’s not like there are hundreds of thousands billionaires in Germany.

Someplaceunknown, do games w EU tax officials confront the most pressing legal question of our time: If you sell RuneScape gold to someone and they use it to buy a magic sword, do you still have to pay taxes?
@Someplaceunknown@leminal.space avatar

RuneScape still exists?

crumbguzzler5000,

Yer god damn right it does! Nostalgia is a helluva drug.

commiunism,

OSRS is legit on its way to become bigger than it was in 2007 on miniclip days, it broke 250k players recently I believe, there’s also been a WoW streamer exodus towards OSRS too

So yes

vane, do games w EU tax officials confront the most pressing legal question of our time: If you sell RuneScape gold to someone and they use it to buy a magic sword, do you still have to pay taxes?

Food safety organs need to inspect all those Stardew Valley farms.

RememberTheApollo_, do games w EU tax officials confront the most pressing legal question of our time: If you sell RuneScape gold to someone and they use it to buy a magic sword, do you still have to pay taxes?
@RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world avatar

I dunno about the tax laws here. Seems anything purchased in game with fake game money that stays in game shouldn’t be subject to a sales tax. Buying game currency with real currency? Sure. Buying real things by selling in-game accounts or items for real money? Fine.

msage, do games w EU tax officials confront the most pressing legal question of our time: If you sell RuneScape gold to someone and they use it to buy a magic sword, do you still have to pay taxes?

advocate general at the Court of Justice of the European Union Juliane Kokott

Anyone from Czech/Slovak Republic here?

I know it’s infantile, but.

Switorik, do games w Starbreeze says sorry, reverses price increase on Payday 2 DLC bundle: 'We definitely didn't handle this right'

They are only sorry the fans saw right through their plan. There’s no reason to increase the price on old digital content.

SoftestSapphic, do games w Starbreeze says sorry, reverses price increase on Payday 2 DLC bundle: 'We definitely didn't handle this right'
@SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world avatar

Payday 3 didn’t make enough money, so they’re following the players back to Payday 2 to try to shake them down there.

What a sad decline for such a great dev :c

mugita_sokiovt, do games w Would-be City of Heroes successor, Ship of Heroes, decides to launch the MMO with a $45 price tag and a $15 monthly subscription and it's, er, going about as well as you'd expect
@mugita_sokiovt@discuss.online avatar

This is called renting… not purchasing for ownership.

Katana314,

Unfortunately, there are some very celebrated games that commit to this approach. Final Fantasy XIV and WoW keep getting away with it, and there are others.

Of course, they had to work for a long time to earn that pedigree and price tag. This certainly has not.

Bbbbbbbbbbb,

And other celebrated games, Everquest, are 100% free to play up to the most recent 2 expansions. There is a paid subscription that unlocked slightly more powerful spells, quick alternate ability progression, and…i dont remember… You can pay about $10 for the quick ability progression instantly but the spells are unimportant. You could also just buy the expansions without subscriptions, or you could just wait a year for your next free dosage of content. Hell theres enough content free for a few years of play without needing to buy anything.

TrousersMcPants,

FF14 is also free to play for the first several expansions to be fair

ArchmageAzor,
@ArchmageAzor@lemmy.world avatar

FFXIV has certainly earned it over the years, and in the case of WoW, isn’t it only the most recent expac that costs extra? I think you get all the previous ones, and WoW Classic, for just subscribing.

snugglesthefalse,

Tbh with FFXIV you only have to buy the 2? Most recent expacs and you can play free up to 70/100 and the accompanying story stuff without. It doesn’t do the limited time free trial anymore.

Evotech,

These are games that require constant development though.

mugita_sokiovt,
@mugita_sokiovt@discuss.online avatar

I don’t think that matters. The should’ve made it a one-time purchase, DRM free, no P2W, no macrotransactions. More people are becoming old-school about their gaming needs nowadays, and I for one happened to be in that camp.

Pika, (edited ) do games w Starbreeze says sorry, reverses price increase on Payday 2 DLC bundle: 'We definitely didn't handle this right'
@Pika@sh.itjust.works avatar

payday still exists? I haven’t heard of the game in years. I’m surprised they even attempted this as a whole because it sounds like it’s only going to piss off their remaining userbase.

BEING SAID, I think their main issue here isn’t the fact that the price went up in the first place, it’s that they decided to make it almost 25% more as the increase after having it be ~52% off for ages. This rollup should have defo been more gradual if they wanted people to not be pissed about that. An instant 50$ increase in price is a tough amount to swallow for a 12 year old game, regardless of if DLC is involved, even moreso when it boosts the price to $170

_cryptagion, do games w Would-be City of Heroes successor, Ship of Heroes, decides to launch the MMO with a $45 price tag and a $15 monthly subscription and it's, er, going about as well as you'd expect
@_cryptagion@anarchist.nexus avatar

That’s, uh, a bold play.

7toed,

And uh its YOUR fault, so uh don’t buy our game? Wait wait - do buy our game, but you should feel bad

Zarxrax, do games w Would-be City of Heroes successor, Ship of Heroes, decides to launch the MMO with a $45 price tag and a $15 monthly subscription and it's, er, going about as well as you'd expect

A ship sounds a lot less exciting than a city.

ms_lane,

*Unless it’s a murder-mystery, but then Train > Ship

dom, do games w Would-be City of Heroes successor, Ship of Heroes, decides to launch the MMO with a $45 price tag and a $15 monthly subscription and it's, er, going about as well as you'd expect

I would be far more open to mo they subscriptions if I didnt have to pay for the game upfront.

I would probably play wow and pay monthly if i didnt have to pay for the game and all the expansions as well as the subscription.

Just too much money imo for what I would get out of the experience

BarbecueCowboy,

Not saying it’s entirely cool, but wow base game purchase usually includes all expansions except the latest nowadays and that rolls (you get newer ones as more expansions are released) if you had an account historically.

dom,

Oh that’s good to know. I wasn’t aware of that

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