can you tax gift cards?

[The Bar Lord, Jon Taffer]

is it legal or ilegal to tax a steam prepaid gift card?

[Satoru]

steam doesnt tax giftcards

most countries gift cards are not taxed

[Wolfsun]

At the company I work for we give out give cards as spot rewards for hourly and many salaried employees going above and beyond (the employees love it). Been doing it for years.

A couple of years ago we had to start tracking who got one and how much because the IRS did an audit and told us to. For us at least gift cards are considered taxable income and it has to be reported/included as income. We are a company with over 200 employees though. For companies with less than 200 it may be different. IRS rules are complex and quite often make no sense. State law can be involved with this issue too.

On the other hand if you, as a private person, are giving someone a gift card it seems unlikely that it would have to be reported as income on an annual tax return by an individual unless it met a certain dollar amount - which used to be $10,000 but that may have changed since I was involved in tax accounting (which I no longer am - except indirectly).

[The Bar Lord, Jon Taffer]

lets say a store is charging tax on them but the law says its a no no who shuld i contact. valve or the authority?

[rawWwRrr]

Valve has no control over whether or not their gift cards are being taxed. You'd have to take that up with local authorities. They would be subjected to the same interpretation of that locality's tax code as the store is.