Um, Sales Tax? What?

[Muu]

Hello. Today I tried buying Dragon Quest 11 which costs $59.99, I have $60.50 on my account. When proceeding to the payment screen I was notified I was about $3 short. What in the world is this? I have never ever had this happen to me, I was always able to buy Steam games for their base price tag.

For details, I live in Ohio, United States. Is this something from Square Enix (being Japanese market), Steam, or a new local tax in my state? Thanks.

[Satoru]

FeaR_TH3_Reap3R の投稿を引用：

And all it will do is push people to find sites that are dodging the laws. If Steam starts collecting sales tax, people will find key sites that don't.

Sites that dodge the law, will find themselves on the wrong side of that law

[Darren]

Satoru の投稿を引用：

FeaR_TH3_Reap3R の投稿を引用：

And all it will do is push people to find sites that are dodging the laws. If Steam starts collecting sales tax, people will find key sites that don't.

Sites that dodge the law, will find themselves on the wrong side of that law

And lets be clear most tax agencies are quite adept at finding people dodging paying tax especially when it's so blatant. If it's a smaller website they might fly under the radar for awhile but eventually it'll start to be shared as a place you can get things cheaper and the tax office would have a quick check and realise that it doesn't seem to be paying tax nor does it seem to be charging it on the website.

This focuses on if said company is US based as I'm not sure if this impacts things outside of the US. So there may be sites legally able to not charge sales tax due to their location of residence (and potentially any tax deal between the US and that country).

[Spawn of Totoro]

Satoru の投稿を引用：

Sites that dodge the law, will find themselves on the wrong side of that law

Not to mention may likely be scams as well, trying to get credit card number, Steam log-in information, contain malware/virus, ect.

If they are willing to do one thing illegally, then they may be willing to do more.

FeaR_TH3_Reap3R の投稿を引用：

And all it will do is push people to find sites that are dodging the laws. If Steam starts collecting sales tax, people will find key sites that don't.

You say that like Valve has a choice in the matter, but they do not. They are a registered business in many parts of the world and subject to the laws in those places. I am sure if they could legally sell the game with out adding tax, they would (and they had been, until the laws changed and it was required to do so).

[lucent]

Try living in New Jersey and dealing with taxes...

Netflix has nothing to do with Jersey going up 2 dollars, but Cablevision just made up a BS charge calling it Network Fee on the bill...$2.50

Really?! So for JUST the internet after they doubled up on the internet modem from 5 to 10 dollars because people cut cable. I now pay $78.11 for JUST an internet connection.

What a SCAM!

[dynastystar]

I'm NOT looking forward to Canada inevitably making me pay extra to buy digital games. It makes sense to charge me the same amount of taxes that I'd have to pay locally, but at the same time, I already have to pay more for games than the US(for example). It costs me $79.99 Canadian to buy a game that costs $59.99 for US.

[Count_Dandyman]

dynastystar の投稿を引用：

I'm NOT looking forward to Canada inevitably making me pay extra to buy digital games. It makes sense to charge me the same amount of taxes that I'd have to pay locally, but at the same time, I already have to pay more for games than the US(for example). It costs me $79.99 Canadian to buy a game that costs $59.99 for US.

Canadian Dollars aren't worth as much as US ones so it is normal that your price will look higher but the reality is that you are usually paying less than the US price

[Шо Сынку. Помогли?]

Pfft. Get used to it.
I pay extra 5 dollars for every game I buy. Your tax is nothing.

[dynastystar]

Count_Dandyman の投稿を引用：

dynastystar の投稿を引用：

I'm NOT looking forward to Canada inevitably making me pay extra to buy digital games. It makes sense to charge me the same amount of taxes that I'd have to pay locally, but at the same time, I already have to pay more for games than the US(for example). It costs me $79.99 Canadian to buy a game that costs $59.99 for US.

Canadian Dollars aren't worth as much as US ones so it is normal that your price will look higher but the reality is that you are usually paying less than the US price

how am I paying less?

[Count_Dandyman]

dynastystar の投稿を引用：

Count_Dandyman の投稿を引用：

Canadian Dollars aren't worth as much as US ones so it is normal that your price will look higher but the reality is that you are usually paying less than the US price

how am I paying less?

because 1 CAD =/= 1 USD

[lucent]

This is what you get for all that free crap the world tries to sale. When someone else is getting something for nothing, that's why it costs so much.

[Crazy Tiger]

Count_Dandyman の投稿を引用：

dynastystar の投稿を引用：

how am I paying less?

because 1 CAD =/= 1 USD

Correct, 1 CAD = 0,76 USD. Which would mean that a 59,99 USD game amounts to 79,36 CAD.

[SpaceyMatt]

Most US States have had this as a law for online purchases for years but it has been up to each individual to report their online purchases and pay the applicable taxes.

You can see how that worked out so they are asking the online entities to do so now, just like a brick and mortar store, and if the online entity wishes to sell items to the residents of their state, they have to collect it.


Note: Steam is not charging you (they are not making this money) they are collecting it for your individual State.

[AmsterdamHeavy]

Kamil's Mum (Cloaked) の投稿を引用：

Spawn of Totoro の投稿を引用：

They do, upon check out.

Im saying update the store page automatically based on taxes, not knowing until checkout is kind of annoying.

This is how things work for grown ups.

Adapt...or die.

[nullable]

FeaR_TH3_Reap3R の投稿を引用：

And all it will do is push people to find sites that are dodging the laws. If Steam starts collecting sales tax, people will find key sites that don't.

Sure, some people will, but not most people. So the end result is states collect much more sales tax than they would otherwise. And no one has the expectation that absolutely every dollar spent on the Internet will have sales tax appropriately collected. States just want something better than sales tax virtually never being collected due to loopholes in laws written before the e-commerce was even a consideration.

[sfnhltb]

FeaR_TH3_Reap3R の投稿を引用：

Brockenstein の投稿を引用：

Well that was then, the good thing about the present is sometimes it's different than the past.

I mean in MI, we had "use tax" (https://www.michigan.gov/taxes/0,4676,7-238-43519_43529-155460--,00.html) and you were supposed to pay sales tax on out of state purchases, but wouldn't you know, no one volunteers to do that.. I imagine at least some other states have similar systems that don't work in the 21st century either. Online shopping is huge and states are losing tons of revenue as a result. So naturally states are going to see about plugging that particular form of tax avoidance. It's been a good 25 years of free for all, but you're kidding yourself if you thought that it would never change and states would leave hundreds of millions in uncollected taxes on the table in perpetuity.

And all it will do is push people to find sites that are dodging the laws. If Steam starts collecting sales tax, people will find key sites that don't.

Well just note that when everyone is evading taxes (in this case while buying things online and then not declaring them in their annual tax returns), it usually isn't worth it for the government chasing down so many people, it would just clog up the courts.

However with these changes, probably it will mean the main bulk of tax payers aren't evading taxes online because most major online retailers start paying the tax they owe for them, like most offline retailers do - so the list of people to chase for tax evasion gets smaller and the risk of action being taken against them increases.