Will VAT drop tomorrow for German users?

[Scorcher24]

Does Steam even has this on their radar? We got a tax relief and VAT is down to 16%. Most stores already grant the relief, what about Valve?

[Aizen]

Originally posted by Scorcher24:

Does Steam even has this on their radar? We got a tax relief and VAT is down to 16%. Most stores already grant the relief, what about Valve?

Barely any online seller provides the reduces VAT of 16% on digital goods, and they don't need to either. Its their choice in the end and there is no point of reducing the VAT on digital goods tbf.

[cinedine]

Not like this means that items actually get cheaper ...
Beginning of the year the tax on tampons dropped. Followed by a price increase. For a product that already is 95 % profit.

[Scorcher24]

Originally posted by Sōsuke Aizen:

Originally posted by Scorcher24:

Does Steam even has this on their radar? We got a tax relief and VAT is down to 16%. Most stores already grant the relief, what about Valve?

Barely any online seller provides the reduces VAT of 16% on digital goods, and they don't need to either. Its their choice in the end and there is no point of reducing the VAT on digital goods tbf.

That is factually wrong. VAT is a law, not a suggestion.

[Tyrian]

Originally posted by Scorcher24:

Originally posted by Sōsuke Aizen:

Barely any online seller provides the reduces VAT of 16% on digital goods, and they don't need to either. Its their choice in the end and there is no point of reducing the VAT on digital goods tbf.

That is factually wrong. VAT is a law, not a suggestion.

and someone who does not stay to laws need to get jailed!

[Tyrian]

Originally posted by Scorcher24:

Does Steam even has this on their radar? We got a tax relief and VAT is down to 16%. Most stores already grant the relief, what about Valve?

link official change ?

[Fuerst Fux]

Originally posted by Scorcher24:

Originally posted by Sōsuke Aizen:

Barely any online seller provides the reduces VAT of 16% on digital goods, and they don't need to either. Its their choice in the end and there is no point of reducing the VAT on digital goods tbf.

That is factually wrong. VAT is a law, not a suggestion.

True but since the prices in the store already include taxes, it is their choice to keep them where they are and happily gloat over their 3 % additional profit from German customers. Which is fairly likely.

[Satoru]

Note that you wont see any price reduction because the price on Steam always includes VAT

Meaning you're going to be paying the exact same amount, just that you will be forwarding less VAT to your government

You're not going ot be paying less for games. Because that's not how that works.

If you thought about that for literally more than 5 seconds, you'd realize that Steam users the Euro throughout the EU. Yet you might also remember that VAT rates in different countries varies. Yet somehow steam doesn't give different euro pricing to different countries

Ergo why would you magically think that a VAT reduction would result in a reduced price? By that logic games would be more expensive in other EU countries. They're not.

Ironically the EU WILL NOT LET STEAM charge different prices for different EU countries due to their own interal laws. Ergo you're asking for soemthing the EU EXPLICITLY PROHIBITS. Steam used to have 3 different EU regional pricing. The EU made that ILLEGAL so steam got rid of it.

So yes if you want Steam to violate EU law, they will absolutely charge you 3% less

But guess what, steam isn't going to violate EU law. So your prices will stay the same. Because the EU says so.

[Fuerst Fux]

Originally posted by Tyrian:

Originally posted by Scorcher24:

Does Steam even has this on their radar? We got a tax relief and VAT is down to 16%. Most stores already grant the relief, what about Valve?

link official change ?

http://www.bgbl.de/xaver/bgbl/start.xav?startbk=Bundesanzeiger_BGBl&jumpTo=bgbl120s1512.pdf

[Scorcher24]

Originally posted by Satoru:

Note that you wont see any price reduction because the price on Steam always includes VAT

Meaning you're going to be paying the exact same amount, just that you will be forwarding less VAT to your government

You're not going ot be paying less for games. Because that's not how that works.

If you thought about that for literally more than 5 seconds, you'd realize that Steam users the Euro throughout the EU. Yet you might also remember that VAT rates in different countries varies. Yet somehow steam doesn't give different euro pricing to different countries

Ergo why would you magically think that a VAT reduction would result in a reduced price? By that logic games would be more expensive in other EU countries. They're not.

Ironically the EU WILL NOT LET STEAM charge different prices for different EU countries due to their own interal laws. Ergo you're asking for soemthing the EU EXPLICITLY PROHIBITS. Steam used to have 3 different EU regional pricing. The EU made that ILLEGAL so steam got rid of it.

So yes if you want Steam to violate EU law, they will absolutely charge you 3% less

But guess what, steam isn't going to violate EU law. So your prices will stay the same. Because the EU says so.

That is also factually wrong. VAT is a national issue, they can give the VAT change back to their customers, if they want to.

[Scorcher24]

Originally posted by Eisberg:

If VAT was something that was added at checkout instead of being a part of the price, then they would be able to change the VAT amount charged at checkout, but they can't do that because that is against EU laws to not have the price include VAT. Here in the US, lets say Utah decided to not charge sale tax during this time, it would be very easy for Valve to not charge me tax since tax is added at checkout and is not included in the price I see on the store page.

The price is probably stored in the database without VAT and then applied in the SQL query, since the receipt must list the VAT separately. And this is the common way to do these things. Nobody stores the price with taxes in a database, always without.

[Crazy Tiger]

Originally posted by Scorcher24:

Originally posted by Satoru:

Note that you wont see any price reduction because the price on Steam always includes VAT

Meaning you're going to be paying the exact same amount, just that you will be forwarding less VAT to your government

You're not going ot be paying less for games. Because that's not how that works.

If you thought about that for literally more than 5 seconds, you'd realize that Steam users the Euro throughout the EU. Yet you might also remember that VAT rates in different countries varies. Yet somehow steam doesn't give different euro pricing to different countries

Ergo why would you magically think that a VAT reduction would result in a reduced price? By that logic games would be more expensive in other EU countries. They're not.

Ironically the EU WILL NOT LET STEAM charge different prices for different EU countries due to their own interal laws. Ergo you're asking for soemthing the EU EXPLICITLY PROHIBITS. Steam used to have 3 different EU regional pricing. The EU made that ILLEGAL so steam got rid of it.

So yes if you want Steam to violate EU law, they will absolutely charge you 3% less

But guess what, steam isn't going to violate EU law. So your prices will stay the same. Because the EU says so.

That is also factually wrong. VAT is a national issue, they can give the VAT change back to their customers, if they want to.

No, that would mean that the price for Germans gets lower and that is against EU directives. Price, including VAT, has to be the same across the EU.

[Scorcher24]

Originally posted by Crazy Tiger:

Originally posted by Scorcher24:

That is also factually wrong. VAT is a national issue, they can give the VAT change back to their customers, if they want to.

No, that would mean that the price for Germans gets lower and that is against EU directives. Price, including VAT, has to be the same across the EU.

You are talking about price discrimination which only refers to local pricing:
https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/pricing-payments/index_en.htm#shortcut-4

The gist of it: You can't be charged more just because of your country of residence

So this does not apply here, since VAT is added on top of the price.

[wuddih]

it is not relevant what the actual sales tax percentage is for non-US customers.

the prices for each product are defined already with taxes considered. ANY taxes that is.

what ever the tax is, it will be legally excerpted on the receipt and funneled to the correct places.

you will not get stuff cheaper because of any tax reduction. games are non-essential and the price is arbitrary to begin with.

Originally posted by Scorcher24:

So this does not apply here, since VAT is added on top of the price.

it is not added on top, it is already included in the price.

[Scorcher24]

Originally posted by wuddih:

Originally posted by Scorcher24:

So this does not apply here, since VAT is added on top of the price.

it is not added on top, it is already included in the price.

That isn't how this works at all. VAT is added on the price, there is only an obligation to show it with the tax included. Your receipt shows the price without tax, the tax and the end price. If you are a business, shopping en gross, you see the prices without VAT, because businesses don't pay them in most cases. It is called sales tax for a reason, it is only paid by end customers. If you are the last customer in the chain, you pay sales tax: https://i.imgur.com/u52jI2i.png

It is incredible how little people know about these things.

[Yasahi]

Originally posted by Scorcher24:

Originally posted by Crazy Tiger:

No, that would mean that the price for Germans gets lower and that is against EU directives. Price, including VAT, has to be the same across the EU.

You are talking about price discrimination which only refers to local pricing:
https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/pricing-payments/index_en.htm#shortcut-4

The gist of it: You can't be charged more just because of your country of residence

So this does not apply here, since VAT is added on top of the price.

It would be price discrimination to every other EU national not living in Germany, hence why the price will remain the same and only the VAT Valve collects and pays forward will be less. This is how it works with the different VAT rates even now. The game costs the same in country A and B but the VAT Valve collects and pays forward is different.

If a national of country A has price X and national of country B has price Z for the same electronically supplied services on the same website, there's price discrimination.

I suggest you actually read what you linked.