"Official" Forum discussion with the Lindens!

In case y'all missed the latest blog post, or couldn't find the thread it references...

For the next 3 days, Catherine Linden is holding a discourse on the forums regarding VAT taxation. The thread is in the Town Hall Feedback Forum

/341/ac/273938/1.html

Even if VAT isn't a big issue with you, you should consider following this thread and contributing, if you have something relevant to add -- if only to show LL that we value their presence in the forums, and attempts to improve communication.

Nice to see the Lindens coming on the forums. Re VAT -being from a VAT paying counrty, my view is that it's a tax we have to pay, end of story.

Thanks for pointing it out Lindal.

It is nice to see the town hall area being used again and an active Linden fielding questions. This may be a glimpse at the overhaul.

VAT is possibly the most boring tax in the world . . . all those with insomnia should definitely attend, and ALL accountants and lawyers in SL.

Pep (That way, if a disaster happens they will all be in the same place)

Oh freaking lovely, like we haven't had enough drama on the boards this summer. Now they are gonna reignite the Vat Wars.

I've sometimes thought that a new forum for Linden Questions would be good. You sometimes see stuff like what Zee is asking about. Or the megaprim thread that Kelly (Andrew?) posted a while ago to see what people thought. Or the survey related to where we thought LL should go next for scripting..

A new forum that only Lindens could create threads in but that we could reply to might be interesting.

Psssst . . .Trout - find a previous engagement and miss it; I'll need one lawyer to defend me.

Pep (I used to be an accountant myself, but I am much better now)

Wise move.. I imagine it's not easy discussing business matters in-world with people dressed up as rabbits and donkeys with talking peni.

Of course, that's one of the challenges of this world -- an one to be overcome, not avoided.

Mari
(a kid who has discussed business matters inworld)

I shouldn't have a problem finding a way to miss this one. I try to avoid anything involving the IRS, and when it's some other country's taxation issue, there's no way I'm going to get involved.

Well it was prompted by the numerous comments about VAT on Zee's last blog post, many of which were inflammatory and rather misguided. So I would say the VAT wars never died out.


As I stated on the blog comments, I'm very pleased to see LL going this route. It allows a greater segment of the SL population to participate in such discussions.

Comedy gold.

It will be interesting to see if it yirlds any real results, or just the usual LL bag of BS and Empty Promises. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt for trying for now.

Well, I expect it will mainly be for setting the record straight. I recall someone accused LL of being in violation of EU law for not collecting VAT all the years they didn't. This is in fact, false, LL was paying the VAT on behalf of it's users. I won't hazard a guess as to why LL decided to stop paying for it's users and instead have the user pay the VAT, but that really doesn't matter to immediate point, LL has always paid the VAT, and was never a VAT dodger.

P.S. Cute forum avatar.

I'm suspicious, since I'm not sure what there is to discuss.

VAT operates by law. Linden Lab has a legal team to look at how to comply with the law. Since pricing European customers out of buying their own sims is a direct threat to Linden Lab's bottom line (given how much revenue depends on tier), I cannot imagine that they did not consider the effect of the VAT tax on sim purchases for those in Europe.

So far, it looks like this thread has a lot of questions regarding "did you try this" "did you try that" for Linden Lab to avoid paying VAT on sim purchases. I'm doubtful about what nuances of the law non-lawyer residents might discover that Linden Lab's lawyers did not.

It doesn't seem set up to be a discussion. Perhaps question-and-answer period, but that's not a discussion.

Oh come on, you know you want to see the depths of willful misunderstanding about VAT and the tirades that come with it.

That's not clear...in one blog post, LL states they were paying on behalf of their EU residents. In a more recent post, they state that they will soon have their back taxes paid off. One might speculate that they tried to get away with not collecting and not paying VAT until someone called them on it.

It should be a VERY short discussion

"For specified electronically delivered services, when supplied by a non-EU operator to an EU customer, the place of taxation is within the EU and accordingly they are subject to VAT"

http://europa.eu/scadplus/leg/en/lvb/l31044.htm

It came into force in 2002. Nothing more to be said really.

Pep (I said it was boring)

Necessity: they couldn't afford to keep remitting and had to pass it on to remain financially viable.

Zee answered that question at the town hall back then, you can use search to find the actual quote if you want to.

There is no way he can say it to make people understand, because the answer doesn't please anyone.

The most explosive growth in the last 18 months came out of Europe. I can only imagine that VAT's costs were extremely significant in light of that. I wouldn't want to shoulder it either, if I were LL.

My guess is there are still people who want LL to pay it.

Which ultimately means they would rather the cost to cover it get spread among everyone.

It seems to me that many Americans in SL are quick to remind everyone outside of America, that it is an American Company, when it suits them, so how come if I buy goods or services from America I have never had to pay vat, only Second Life (would) charge vat?

Bugger again, just seen Pserendipity post:

Oh no I don't! I remember that firestorm and I want nothing to do with it.

Agreed. That was one of the nastiest, meanspirited discussions I've ever seen that didn't involve my family and the Holidays....

I think that's a pretty safe assumption, at least they aren't trying to back-tax the customers for it which if even possible (most residents would probably just stop payment on their credit cards) would cause huge amounts of problems. /me shudders even thinking about it.