Governments bringing laws to the virtual world

I don't think the government (and by "the government" I'm speaking exclusively about the US government) could ever legally levy taxes on transactions that occur in a MMORPG. For starters, true sales tax (which is actually a function of the state and local governments) requires the exchange of a good or service of value. You can argue until you're blue in the face that selling a Sword of Fragtaculous Awesomeness is an exchange of goods, but nothing has really happened. A coding flag has been triggered to indicate that you have a weapon you didn't have before. However, it has to take place solely in this virtual world for nothing but the exchange of virtual currency.

Now here's the catch. If I open a store in your local mall and one of the goods I sell just happens to be that Sword of Fragtaculous Awesomeness and you pay me in American Dollars for the item and I go online and give it to you, expect to pay some sales tax on that transaction. It's not different than buying a collectible (baseball, Magic, Yu Gi Oh) card second hand at a hobby shop.

It does pose an interesting if not semi-unreleated question: Is opening a store, be it a virtual one over the internet or a brick and mortar one in the "real" world, whose only purpose is for the second hand sale of MMORPG items a viable, long-term business model? Or are you limiting yourself by hitching your fortune to something with a limited shelf life?

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