Steam Cards?

I just sell them anyways. It's like free money falling into my lap.

Yeah exactly, but I've kept a few which I just find interesting. 

A friend of mine actually got contacted by Valve directly because they needed tax information because he sold so many of them (I think it was like over 15$ total.) That said, I just turn around and sell mine.

Well it's all part of Steamworks. FE has cards so tehre's no reason why tehy wouldn't make them for GalCiv3. Though who knows what other things Steam might have out by the time the game is released.

Steam collects your information once you hit over 200 transactions in a CALENDAR year. If you do yuou have to:

1) Provide your SSN for POTENTIAL IRS reporting purposes via a 3rd party website. You're not reported to the IRS until you hit like $20,000 similar to Paypals policy

or

2) Prove you're not a US Citizen via a 3rd party website

or

3) Ignore it and wait for the calendar year to expire, then you get 'reset' to 200 transations

Wait a minute!!! Are you saying Steam sent an email to this guy asking for an SSN? Are you sure he wasn't been phished by an ID thief???

From the Steam Support Community Market FAQ:

________________

Do I have to pay income taxes on the proceeds of sales I make in the Community Market?

Different countries have different rules relating to the taxation of digital transaction. For U.S. citizens and residents, as discussed above, we are obligated to collect certain taxpayer identifying information from those who engage in more than 200 transactions in a calendar year, but no information is reported to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service unless your gross revenues from such sales exceed $20,000. Ultimately, the responsibility for determining any income tax liabilities, if any, which you may have rests with you, and so if you are concerned about the issue you should consult your own tax advisor.

________________

It looks like your $15 is really $20,000.

And how can we be sure a phishing ID thief can't mimic this????

Steam will attempt to collect your information when you hit 200 transactions.

It only reports those moneys to the IRS if you hit $20k

What is a steam card.

What is Steams mechanism for asking you for this info????

Steam calls them "Steam trading cards". For more about them go to http://steamcommunity.com/tradingcards/faq/

Also see  https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=6088-UDXM-7214&l=english#addldocsemail.

Basically the developer makes a series of 'cards' aka artwork pieces. Once the # of cards is determined, as you play the game you will get a random card every hour or so of game time. The game 'drops' only half the # of total cards (and duplicates count as a 'drop'). The rest if you really want them you can trade or purchase on the Steam Market. If you get all the cards, ou can craft badges for your Steam profile and some other things like backgrounds for your profile, emoticons, etc.

Yes youc an get really really caught up with the market and buying up cards. Or you can do what I do and just dump them on the market for whatever some insane person want's to buy them for. I've made $25 doing that, which amounts to making $25 for donig pretty much doing nothing at all. Someone else can trade and figure out how to make 'money' off of it. I made my $25 and I haven't even sold all my cards yet.

How do you sell steam cards?  Do you need a paypal account, or do you just get credit at steam?  I have like 50 cards, really don't car about them... (oh a few are cute...) and i could use some cash....(or steamy credit)

Go to inventory, pick a card you want to sell. Remember name. Go to market (Community tab), enter your card's name in search field. look for specific prices, set by different people. Pick price you find appropriate, return to Inventory, pick a card, press "Sell" button, enter price you considered appropriate, then click on "confirm" and that's all.

You need to go to market first to see array of prices - from Inventory's screen Steam only shows last price (usually cheapest) and statistic (not always relevant).

When you enter your price, there are two windows - one is the money you'll receive, and the other - price buyer will pay. It is higher, because Steam takes some money (some money sent to developer of the game). Just remember that when you will be setting prices.

After you click "Confirm" you'll have to check box "I agree with trading agreement blah-blah".

No paypal, nothing needed - money go straight to your Steam wallet. You can't get them anywhere from there, but do you really need that?

I think that's all you need to know. At least that's all I remember. Happy trading.

unlike the old Diablo RMAH you can't extract money from Steam. Whatever money you make at the market is "stuck" in Steam. You can't pull money out via PayPal or other measures.