I had an interesting realization last night with one of my shoppers.  I was out peddling my goods to the Second Life (SL) residents that I ran into (sometimes literally) while exploring  Narnia (I don’t know where I was, actually) and I came across a guy at a club. I was trying to sell the shirt I was wearing (link smush.myshopify.com), but it was a...

I’ve been thinking more about this issue and thinking that Governments SHOULD tax transactions in SL. When you think of SL without the fancy 3D virtual world aspect it is primarily just another platform for business transactions. When you set up a shop in SL it isn’t much different than setting up an Internet business in RL. You may have a much richer...

Virtual Tax Man Cometh My gut reaction to the ATO (acronym: Australian Tax Office) was one of incredulity. The idea of taxing incorporating the RL value of virtual earnings seemed crazy to me. My reasoning has been that of looking at SL as an investment of sorts. Similar to buying stock in a company, or putting your money in the bank. If the interest you make on your...

This is my first SL shirt. I sourced it from a t-shirt I saw. If you want to buy it, however, let me know. I have opened a store at http://smush.shopify.com. It will take some doing to get it to work with $L...

‘Second Life’ to begin selling real names: http://news.com.com/2061-10797_3-6125932.html This reminds me of Pattern Recognition:http://www.librarything.com/work/118&book=4807867 Pattern Recognition is based in the future where everyone’s surname is the company where you work. Some of the character’s names are Hack Nike, Jennifer...

Congress to Probe Virtual Economies This article has already made its rounds, but I think it is quite interesting. Congress is investigating the virtual phenomenon. They are trying to figure out to what extent the Government should be involved. Another article, Are Virtual Assets Taxable I have read says their reason against any form of taxation is that it would...