c|net ran a news piece regarding the possible taxation of virtual goods such as items from online games like World of Warcraft or Second Life.

With rare items and powerful characters being sold daily for very considerable prices, not to mention the many "gold farming" services easily found for the most popular online games, this market thrive on the lack of regulation (like many other internet services), but for how long will treasuries worldwide neglect the possible income from e-trades?

Selling virtual goods and characters for real money is against the WoW EULA, isn't it? In a way, that would be like the government letting crack dealers get tax returns on their drug dealing. I guess it really depends on what they tax. For games that it's legal/allowed, this might have more possibilities though.

Yes, and 2-3 months ago, Blizzard removed a ton of accounts flagged for this and about 1 million gold from the game. I wonder what happens when all of those taxed items and gold are deleted... would you get your taxes back? ;)