New news about the metaverse, which is defined as ‘the future of the Internet’, continues to come every day. Millions of dollars are invested in these increasingly popular virtual universes from many people and companies. Assets such as digital plots that are paid astronomical fees are also among the things invested in the metaverse.
Now, Second Life, one of the games considered to be the pioneer of the metaverse, has made a statement about virtual universes, which is thought to be widespread all over the world in the future. US-based technology giant Linden Lab, the developer of the game, made important statements on the subject of ‘paying taxes in the metaverse’.
A ‘sales tax’ is coming to Metaverse
First of all, let’s talk about Second Life, which is very popular all over the world. This game, which was released in 2003, allows users to navigate through avatars, interact with other people, and do things that are done in normal life digitally in an internet-based virtual world. This game, which promises a ‘second life’ to its players, is considered a very important platform because it is suitable for the purposes and general lines of the metaverse.
The developer of the game, Linden Lab, also made statements that will upset its users this week. Authorities announced that there will now be a ‘sales tax’ in the game, which is popular around the world. According to the statements, users will have to pay taxes on purchases such as virtual land, premium subscriptions made in the game with a new update: “We have done everything we can to protect our players from these taxes; but now we have to accept this situation”
In addition, it was stated in the explanations that this decision was taken due to a law that came into force in the United States in 2018, allowing taxes to be levied on online purchases. This registered Second Life as the first metaverse platform to tax its users and showed us that such decisions can be made on other platforms as well.
In conclusion, this decision, which we can describe as a turning point; It is possible to say that Roblox, Meta can seriously affect the Horizon Worlds universe and many other metaverse platforms. In addition, the possibility of imposing taxes on many increasingly popular topics such as NFTs and cryptocurrencies is also a topic on the agenda. In short, people will probably soon have to pay taxes on assets purchased from virtual universes, just as they do with things bought in real life.
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