Having previously reported that Second Life merchants had been reporting they’d been sent forms related to tax information by Linden Lab, I’m pleased to see that Linden Lab have now issued a blog post regarding the situation. There are still some remaining questions regarding this, some Linden Lab may have the answers to and others the IRS will be the only people with the answers.
The post says:
“The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) requires Linden Lab to collect and retain Form W-9 (for U.S. residents) and Form W-8BEN (for non-U.S. residents) at certain transaction volumes. If you reach the transaction threshold and we do not have your completed and signed W-9 or W-8BEN on file, we are required to withhold funds from your account (at the current rate of 28% of your gross amounts received). Additionally, for U.S. residents with 200 or more transactions with a total amount in excess of $20,000 in a calendar year, we are required to file a Form 1099-K with the IRS reporting those transactions for that year.
If you are required to submit a W-9 or W-8BEN form to us, we will email you before the end of the year with instructions on how to do so. Please follow the instructions to complete and submit the required Form W-9 or W-8BEN within thirty (30) days of receipt. You will only need to complete this paperwork once unless your information changes from year-to-year. If you do not receive an email from Linden Lab, we do not need you to complete these forms.”
One would hope that there will be an accompanying knowledgebase article or wiki reference regarding this. As I stated in my previous post on the subject, the likes of Steam and Paypal have information regarding this on their websites.
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