Why are people upset of sales tax being applied to Steam lol?

[Cyber2B]

Canadian here, so anything you purchase online like Amazon, Steam, PSN, etc, etc now is taxed. Law is effective July 1st, 2021.
https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/businesses/topics/gst-hst-businesses/digital-economy.html

The states has had the same ordeal already. Nothing brand new fellow Canucks

Since 2014 when I first made my first online purchase and -- it was taxless, I figured the government is going to catch on sooner or later and looks like 2021 was that "one day".

That said, why are some people upset over this? The government was going to touch the online world sooner or later.

That said the tax isn't even the full PST-GST. So technically would still be cheaper then buying in-store.

[WhiteKnight]

It makes me wonder why does gov need to tax digital goods?. Anyways you are right. Sooner or later digital will have to pay taxes.

[Chompman]

Originally posted by WhiteKnight:

It makes me wonder why does gov need to tax digital goods?. Anyways you are right. Sooner or later digital will have to pay taxes.

Mainly because it was a loophole where people were able to get items cheaper online then from a brick & mortar store and it resulted in a large revenue loss for many regions and physical stores could not compete in many cases as we saw when online sales were taking off.

Digital goods are no different really as a lot of the times you can get the same item in a physical store before many software products switched to online sales only.

Not to mention legally people are supposed to report these purchases if they avoided paying the tax but almost no one did and forcing the online stores to do it on their end was the only solution.

[Tiberius]

Yea it'a a form of tax avoidance. Not sure why ppl are mad abt this.

[Gus the Crocodile]

Originally posted by WhiteKnight:

It makes me wonder why does gov need to tax digital goods?

Same reasons they tax physical goods. Nothing special about buying things online, a product is a product.

[[N]ebsun]

Originally posted by WhiteKnight:

It makes me wonder why does gov need to tax digital goods?

GST - Goods and Services Tax

It applies to basically anything that is traded (including things that are traded without actual money being transferred - eg. if you barter, you'd have to pay tax on the equivalent $ value)
Why would digital goods or services be any different ?

[Cyber2B]

Originally posted by Nebsun:

Originally posted by WhiteKnight:

It makes me wonder why does gov need to tax digital goods?

GST - Goods and Services Tax

It applies to basically anything that is traded (including things that are traded without actual money being transferred - eg. if you barter, you'd have to pay tax on the equivalent $ value)
Why would digital goods or services be any different ?

Bright side its still cheaper then going out and buying a game, downside that it will soon be fixed.

It was a good long run though when things weren't taxed. Canada pays an overwhelming amount but I am glad that I don't have to spend approx $10,000-20k a year for health care like my cousins in the states which includes checkups, bloodwork, etc.

[sanxsor]

Because at least in my country, it was something that the government was ignorant, made everything to stop innovation and never did something to improve the infrastructure for the service (only when it became a serious business), so its just greed for some and nothing really in return at least for the customer that's is the one that is going to shallow the tax, not the company, not steam just the final customer.

To give you and example service like Steam, Netflix, Amazon, Spottily, etc. instead of paying taxes they just raised their prices from 10$ to 13$ (as example), so in the end the customer is the one to suffer.

[Tiberius]

Originally posted by sanxsor:

To give you and example service like Steam, Netflix, Amazon, Spottily, etc. instead of paying taxes they just raised their prices from 10$ to 13$ (as example), so in the end the customer is the one to suffer.

This has nothing to do with the govt.

[Chompman]

Originally posted by sanxsor:

Because at least in my country, it was something that the government was ignorant, made everything to stop innovation and never did something to improve the infrastructure for the service (only when it became a serious business), so its just greed for some and nothing really in return at least for the customer that's is the one that is going to shallow the tax, not the company, not steam just the final customer.

To give you and example service like Steam, Netflix, Amazon, Spottily, etc. instead of paying taxes they just raised their prices from 10$ to 13$ (as example), so in the end the customer is the one to suffer.

The thing is the services do not pay the taxes like that but the consumer.

Price increase for services like that is on their end and it's a factor of inflation and increased cost for purchasing show rights.

[kitt]

Originally posted by Gus the Crocodile:

Originally posted by WhiteKnight:

It makes me wonder why does gov need to tax digital goods?

Same reasons they tax physical goods. Nothing special about buying things online, a product is a product.

good that you understand the difference between a physical object and a non-existent non physical object.

[Gus the Crocodile]

Originally posted by kitt:

Originally posted by Gus the Crocodile:

Same reasons they tax physical goods. Nothing special about buying things online, a product is a product.

good that you understand the difference between a physical object and a non-existent non physical object.

Digital products are not non-existent. Taxation just has nothing to do with whether you can hold an item in your hand.

[JVC]

Originally posted by kitt:

Originally posted by Gus the Crocodile:

Same reasons they tax physical goods. Nothing special about buying things online, a product is a product.

good that you understand the difference between a physical object and a non-existent non physical object.

Both are products. Netflix doesn't give you access to their library just because they think that would be nice. They do so because of a financial transaction. That's taxable.

Some tax codes exempt certain types of transactions from sales tax / value added tax or similar, e.g. rent is exempt from those taxes in many countries. That's by design and expressly written in the tax code. No similar exceptions apply here.

Or when the mechanic checks my car, even if he doesn't change a single item I still have to pay sales tax on the bill he charges eventhough I don't drive out of the garage with a single new item.

[Nomad]

Pretty sure I've always paid taxes on my digital purchases. It's just in UK, we roll the tax into the price that is on the tag, rather than adding it as an extra cost. So if something costs £20, 20% of that is tax.

[Cr4zy3ye]

I hope OP is aware that companies like amazon and google pay less than 1% tax in most countries, the government demanding there extra slice from the paying consumer and not the multi-billion dollar companies that skirt the law is probably why people are upset.

[Tito Shivan]

Originally posted by Cr4zy3ye:

I hope OP is aware that companies like amazon and google pay less than 1% tax in most countries, the government demanding there extra slice from the paying consumer and not the multi-billion dollar companies that skirt the law is probably why people are upset.

Nope. People are upset because now they get to pay more, plain and simple.