US Infernal Revenue want to do what?!

I was reading up the technology news on the BBC news site today, when I came across a rather intriguing article

Please read it and say what you think. Now, I'm not American, so this doesnt concern me directly. Nor should it concern GW directly. But it cites WoW as an example and said game has a silmilar policy to GW regarding game transactions that involve real world money. Now this may just be bad journalism on the BBC's part, but imagine, 10 years down the line, this concept has been set into motion and several other nations have followed suit and imposed silmilar rules. In my mind now, I have a vision of 'Crystalline Sword: 150k + Value Added Tax @ 17.5%'

It's a bizarre thought, and indeed, a scary one. Such ridiculous ideas need to fall at the first hurdle, before they are ever allowed to manifest themselves properly- the idea of taxation on strings of binary code, which is what this essentially is, is frankly appalling.

So... was the article saying, that because you can buy 1 mil gold on eBay for $20 (or whatever it is) real money, that every in-game transaction is actually worth something?

I'm not really understanding where the investigation is going to occur... will it be the botter-farmers and the gold websites? Or players in-game?

Pay for a game (+ tax), pay monthly fees, and pay tax when you buy the +3 broadsword of pruning? Give me a break.

Already posted here. Closed.