On September 11, Juliane Kokott, the Advocate General at the Court of Justice of the European Union, issued an opinion seeking a preliminary ruling on a significant dilemma faced by tax authorities: Should sellers of RuneScape gold be liable for taxes?

Kokott’s opinion, which opens with a quote from Goethe’s Faust—“Gold all doth lure, Gold doth secure all things. Alas, we poor!"—cites a taxable individual who bought and resold RuneScape gold, netting approximately €415,484, or around $488,000, without paying taxes.

According to Lithuanian tax law, individuals earning less than €45,000 annually are exempt from VAT obligations. However, those trading in RuneScape gold surpassed that threshold. In January 2024, they were ordered to pay €46,688 in back taxes.

Kokott explains that the core of the matter is how transactions involving in-game currency are interpreted under EU law. The opinion states, “The mere fact that a service (in-game gold) can be exchanged for another (such as an item like a ‘magic sword’) does not make the service that has already been supplied a voucher.”

This legal clarification will impact how virtual currencies are treated under tax laws moving forward.