Linden Lab – Page 130

January 23, 2014

2 Broke Girls Episode Includes Second Life Jokes

I’ll be honest, I don’t really watch 2 Broke Girls on the television, I’ve watched the odd episode and it seems to be on the telly a lot during the evenings in the UK, along with the Big Bang Theory. I’ve watched far more episodes of the Big Bang Theory.

However news reaches me via a post over at SLUniverse by Brenda Connolly (AKA Connolly) that a very recent episode of the show included references to Second Life. I mean really recent, like this week! This is backed up by an update on the wikipedia page : Second Life in popular culture which also references the episode. Actually that page is missing references from The Big Bang Theory.

Anyway, there were apparently a few references in the show. One exchange related to a character called Han (not solo) who missed an arranged visit to one of the characters because his Second Life wife was having a baby. The character complained that he had had fake sex nine months ago and not told anybody …. I guess you had to be there!

According to the SLU thread there was a further reference regarding the traditional don’t you need a first life before you have a second, ho ho ho. Anyway, this does exemplify that Second Life is still a popular and relevant enough name to be made fun of. There’s no such thing as bad publicity …. usually.

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January 23, 2014

Inara Holmes And Gray Of The Lab Solve The Tax And Account Form Mystery

I’ve mentioned Inara Holmes before and today I receive news, via telegram of course, that she has helped to solve the mystery of the Second Life tax and account information forms. Inara was able to solve the mystery of whether people needed to put an Individual Tax Identification Number (ITIN) or an Employer Identification Number (EIN) on the forms sent by Linden Lab. The reason people were pondering this was because other companies require this information or those companies may withhold some income.

Inara, and her old buddy, Gray Of The Lab from San Francisco, have managed to clear matters up. Peter Gray responded to Inara’s query, again by telegram and Inara shared that information:

The users whom we have asked to submit the W8-BEN need only complete the fields in Part I, #1-5 (which does not require an EIN nor an ITIN).

We regret the confusion this form has recently caused for some users. To help avoid this confusion moving forward, we’ve uploaded a new version of the form that allows users to complete only the necessary fields and will update the messages sent to users when this information is requested.

So here’s the bottom line, as it currently stands, people do not need to worry about providing an EIN or ITIN for Second Life purposes. Whereas some people may frown about this and wonder why, the simple fact is that they are not currently required which makes filling out the form much easier for everyone.

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January 22, 2014

Tax Cliffhanger – The Conclusion

Recap : Yesterday I blogged about the confusion users were facing with trying to fill in forms to comply with Linden Lab’s new tax and account requirements. At the end of that post I had to leave matters on a cliffhanger, Kat Fetisov was hanging on the telephone with the IRS whilst trying to find out whether she could obtain an Employer ID Number (EIN), which rumour has it can be obtained during a phone call, rather than having to get an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN), which can take several weeks to obtain and would therefore mean missing the Linden Lab deadline of 30 days …..

The result, Kat got an EIN! However, there have been more twists to this plot and they may or may not be good, on the face of it they are good. A user called Jerry commented on my original post and said:

“I tried to transfer some money and it did never arrive within 3 weeks. So I filed a support ticket. That is how I found out that there was an open ticket where they requested the tax form. I filled it out and I got my money, but as you said, I left the ITIN blank. Still, one month later I sent another payment and it worked.”

So Jerry didn’t need to fill in an EIN or an ITIN, and here is where a little guidance may have been useful. Kat has also discovered she didn’t need an EIN or ITIN , for the purposes of filling this form in for Linden Lab. However Kat was advised by Linden Lab that she should put her UK National Insurance number on the form. There is a section on the W8-BEN that has space for a foreign tax ID number.

Kat also has an excellent blog post with some helpful information for those who may be struggling with this : The plot thickens. Or possibly thins a little. However Kat is, rightly in my view, a little suspicious of the way Linden Lab are dealing with matters, it’s not that she thinks Linden Lab have got matters wrong, it’s just that the process is unusual when compared to other American based companies who ask you to fill in forms such as this.

I can see exactly where Kat is coming from on this matter because, as I’ve mentioned before, I’ve had to fill this form in for Amazon KDP and this is how my status there looks:

An Image Should Be Here — Tax Information Completed

As you can see, I have an applicable withholding rate of 30% and that is because I haven’t provided Amazon with an EIN or an ITIN, I’ve left that field blank. This means if I publish anything on Amazon and it sells to Amazon US customers, they will hold back 30% of my royalties. However it looks like, this isn’t the case with Second Life, which should be cheered.

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January 21, 2014

LL’s New Account Requirements Prove Taxing For Users

Whether it’s Required Account Documentation, or whether it’s Required Tax Documentation, SL users are getting into a tizzy with LL, the IRS and confusion about whether they need an ITIN or an EIN as people find themselves lost in acronym city.

There are posts on the official Second Life Forums:

ID and TAX ID Information Required by Linden Labs – Pending Processes Credits On Hold

Patriot Act Letter from LL?

LL needs more “Required Account Documentation” ?…..

The people starting these threads are not noobs, some of them have experience outside of Second Life of dealing with business issues, yet they are lost in a sea of fog as to exactly what’s required and why it’s required. Then over at SLUniverse there is a long standing thread where Kat Fetisov is currently hanging on the telephone with the IRS! Will the call be finished before this blog post is published? Hold tight readers, we may need to end with a cliffhanger …..

However there are some things that people need to know regarding these issues, one of them being that if you’ve been under the radar with your income from Second Life, you may be in for a bit of pain …. and really, it’s your own fault and you know it really, so concentrate and find out the proper options. Unfortunately, as I said earlier, the current options are shrouded in mist.

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January 18, 2014January 18, 2014

Should The Second Life Website Have A Category For Podcasts And Inworld Media Shows?

As I said in my previous post, The Drax Files Radio hour isn’t the first of its kind, the popular MetaReality Podcast has been around for a while, Drax was part of that sometimes too! However in another way of making the point that talking is good, a discussion in the comments of the first Drax Files Radio Show episode related around other Second Life related podcasts and thanks to links from Crap Mariner of 100 words stories, I can see that there were many other podcasts in the past.

An example is the now defunct SecondCast, which was presented mainly by Johnny Ming and Torrid Midnight of Torridwear. However other people would also host the show, including Cristiano Midnight of SLUniverse and Snapzilla, Lordfly Digeridoo and Walker Spaight of 3pointD.com and the Second Life Herald, is this the same Walker who became a Linden as conversation manager? Thanks to the wayback machine we can find descriptions of the sort of content the show covered. Unfortunately we can’t hear the content.

23rd May 2006 – We recently posted an interview with Reuben Steiger, former Linden Lab Evangelist, who has recently launched a Metaverse professional services company called Millions of Us.

Millions Of Us went on to do plenty of work within Second Life, including work with corporations, here’s a video of the opening of te CNET HQ in Second Life back in November 2006:

July 5th 2006 – Johnny and the Secondcasters interview Philip Linden a.k.a. Philip Rosedale on the 3rd anniversary of Second Life and the 6 month anniversary of Secondcast. Topics range from the new open user registration to the changing culture on the grid and the “Get Philip In Your Pants” contest. Send your pants entries to Johnny Ming in-world (make sure they are transferrable).

Here we see an example of how the Lindens would engage with broadcasters, over the years the Lindens did engage with other broadcasters, they were interviewed on the Paisley Beebe chat show, for example.

July 16th 2006 – Johnny and the Secondcasters interview Randy Moss of the American Cancer Society and Second Life resident Jade Lily. The group discusses the 2nd Annual SL Relay for Life and fundraising in virtual worlds. Torrid describes her team’s fundraising strategies and Johnny ends the show explaining the source of the male Secondcasters tennis elbow. Don’t miss the Relay for Life this upcoming weekend!!

This makes one feel old, relay for life was only in its second year back then! There were many other podcasts, some of which are listed on the wiki.

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