One Of The Only Certainties In Life: South Korea To Tax Virtual Assets
The Korean National Tax Service has announced they will be tacking on value added tax (VAT) to real-money transactions (RMT) in virtual worlds beginning 1 July. It seems like a business that would be fairly easy to take under the radar to avoid paying taxes, but I'm not a tax professional.
A summarized policy:
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-manSellers who do more than 12 million won/half year in business will need a business license and will pay the tax by themselves
The entry at im69 points out that according to the TOS of many games, in-game items and currency traded for real money still belong to the developers - so who exactly is responsible for the tax and how is the industry going to respond? Korean game publishers have been silent on the issue, but the increasing interest real-world governments have in regulating virtual transactions is getting more and more interesting.
RMT Taxation starts in Korea from 1 July 2007 [im69 via PlayNoEvil]