Posted 02/09/09 at 02:00:00 PM by David Murphy

Two things are certain in every life: Death and taxes.  While we have yet to find any good freeware tools to help with the former, we've been on a kick to find alternatives to pricy software like Quicken or Microsoft Money.  The good news?  We were able to find five separate programs that can help you track the money coming in and flowing out.  The bad news?  It's slim pickings beyond this.  We came across plenty of paid-for applications and a proverbial bucket full of online applications that help you track your finances.  But when it comes to freeware financing applications, there just isn't a huge market for this kind of stuff.

But while we're blabbering, your fortune is surely ticking away!  So what are you waiting for?  Stop reading!  Start downloading!  Put on your accounting hat!

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Posted 01/12/09 at 04:09:15 PM by Andy Salisbury

According to Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson, the International Revenue Service should start taxing the economies of Second Life, World of Warcraft and other virtual worlds. In an annual report posted on the IRS website, Olsen has stated that there are a number of issues that the IRS should address before they get out of control.

"Economic activities associated with virtual worlds may present an emerging area of noncompliance, in part, because the IRS has not issued guidance about whether and how taxpayers should report such activities," Olson writes in her report. Alongside that, she identifies that almost all income is subject to taxation, even prizes and winnings.

This isn’t the first time this issue has been mentioned, though. Since 2003 people both on and offline have looked ad the taxation of virtual economies and Dan Miller, a senior economist for the congressional Joint Economic Committee, has started playing with the idea of taxing MMORPGs after he’d taken a step into online gaming.

With any luck, this won’t come full circle. It would be a huge burden on taxpayers, having to report their every move in World of Warcraft to Uncle Sam, but who would really want to get caught up in paperwork just to play a video game?

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Posted 08/12/08 at 10:07:35 PM by Paul Lilly

Purchasing software and other digital content online is not only be convenient, it can also make fiscal sense when there's no sales tax involved. That's been the case for some time now, but according to DailyTech, the free ride may be rapidly coming to an end.

With a $130 billion digital market going untaxed, the temptation for some states to cash in may be too great to pass up, even if the idea of taxing downloads doesn't pass muster at the national level. Indiana, South Dakota, and Utah are the most recent states to sign digital download taxes into law, bringing the count up to 9 states altogether in 2008, and 17 in all. But are taxes the answer?

Several online entities have begun lobbying against the taxes, claiming that this differentiation is vital to their business. As Steve Delbiano from NetChoice - which is composed of Ebay, AOL, Yahoo, and others - explains it, "With global warming and a world that's running out of oil, the last thing governments should do is add taxes on something that uses no oil and produces no carbon. A digital download is the greenest way to buy music, movies, and software, since it requires no driving to the store, no delivery vans, and no plastics or packaging."

What's your stance? Do states have a moral and legal right to tax digital downloads, or should the internet tax moratorium trump individual state desires?

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Posted 06/20/08 at 03:14:55 PM by Pulkit Chandna

The days of tax-free purchases for online shoppers are numbered, feel many experts. A new law in New York has made sales tax mandatory on internet purchases. This has widened the grin on the faces of offline store managers in the state, who expect some internet shoppers to turn their attention and wallets towards them. New York might have just shown the way to other states that are deliberating upon ways to tax online purchases.

Read on to see why this is happening, and whether you'll be affected. 

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