New Account Payment Level: Plus Accounts, Euro Residents No Longer Pay VAT Tax

 

Yesterday in the official Second Life blog, there were two noteable announcements. Linden Lab stated it was introducing a fourth level for accounts, one between basic and Premium: Plus accounts. 

Continuing the theme of giving you more for less: We’re reducing the price of owning your piece of Second Life. We want to put Mainland ownership within reach of many more residents, because we think having land of your own is one of the key parts of Second Life.

This means there are now four account levels, Basic/free, Plus, Premium, and Premium Plus.

What Plus essentially does is allow you to get land in Second Life for a lower price. However, it appears Plus members are limited to owning mainland outside the Linden Home areas. They also get a weekly stipend of 150 Linden dollars, can have up to 512 square meters of mainland without making payments, and can join up to 50 groups (8 more than basic). This for the price of $5.99 USD , or $65.99 per year, (before taxes). This is about half the price of Premium accounts at $11.99 USD a month, or $99.99 a year (before taxes), which give you twice the stipend and free mainland allowance, a larger group capacity, a 1000L signup bonus, a Linden Home, the ability to buy private sims, and more. 

They were also lowering the price of mainland area.

In addition to the free allotment that comes with each membership level, we’re lowering the price at 1/8 region (8,192 m2) and higher by over 10%

 

And there is some good news for European residents. For several years, they have had to pay Vaule Added Tax, or VAT, on payments for Premium memberships. As of now, they no longer need to do so

The issue soon came up in the official forums. On the whole, people were happy with this move, though there were some questions.

To see the forum post in full, Click Here.

Bixyl Shuftan

News In Brief

There's a lot going on in Second Life. But between the Relay, the SLB, and our upcoming anniversary, so little time to write about it. Here's a brief mention of a few things going on.


In an article in Vice magazine, Linden Lab's CEO Ebbe Altberg stated Second Life's monthly usership was close to 900,000 thousand. Ryan Schultz would point out this was a 50% increase from the days before the Coronavirus Pandemic.


There's a new Firestorm viewer out, Update 6.3.9.58205, "this one comes with a LOT of changes, bug fixes and improvements."


A few days ago, Linden Lab would announce all further US dollar transactions, not just those for cashing out Lindens to real world currency, would be handled via it's Tilia service, "to stay compliant with regulations across a number of U.S. states." Also a few days ago, the Lab announced it would be adding the Value Added Tax to transactions involving residents of Norway and Australia.


Earlier this month, Daniel Voyager reported that the Second Life app, powered by Android, was still in an "internal alpha" stage of development, "This is a communications only app, for now." There's no date as to when a public beta will be out, Ebbe Linden recommending for now the web-based Speedlight.


Yours truly was also given a tour of the CDS Catacombs, located at Colonia Nova (78,108,22). Mermaid Celene (CeleneHighwater Resident) of the Radegast Viewer group met up with me to discuss "Silver Economy," which blind SL users can take part in. After a tip from a friend about "a free downloadable board game ... based around making fun of the toilet paper shortages," I had a talk with the maker, Wanders Nowhere.


We'll have more on some of these when time permits.

Bixyl Shuftan

Eye on the Blog: Premium Membership Cut to $9.50 Per Month, VAT Charges to End

Since September 2007, Linden Lab has charged a VAT or Value Added Tax from residents outside the United States from those countries whose tax system includes it. This has particularly been an annoyance to European residents, some of whom have complained it puts them at a business disadvantage with Americans. But in a move that will mean relief to these users of Second Life, Linden Lab announced in their latest blog entry that they will no longer be charging VAT.

Premium members will also have reason to cheer. Linden Lab has reduced the monthly fee for premium accounts to $9.50 US dollars a month.

... we’re reducing the standard cost of a monthly Premium subscription to just $9.50 a month. Enjoy all the benefits of Premium Membership for less!
 
We will also no longer charge VAT for Premium subscriptions. If you live in a region where VAT applies, this means an effective savings in some countries of more than 20% below what you would have previously paid!

Several residents have expressed opinions in threads in the official forums and SL Universe. Not everyone was pleased with the decision to end the VAT. Some Americans complained the Lab was effectively giving Europeans a discount.

For the complete blog post: Click Here.