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[bobnowhere]

I don't have too much issue with adding GST to online intangible purchases but a few things are going to have to happen before steam starts collecting it. First I believe the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) want to enforce Steam to have some level of local presence, something I think steam is fighting. Secondly they are going to have to add the local currency and thirdly while I think the lower, Indie, end of the market will increase by 10% or so I don't image high end AAA games will get any more expensive.

Currently the Australia Tax is largely applied to match the prices in local bricks and mortar stores that charge GST. I can't imagine the likes of 2k, the worst of them, would then add another 10% on top on steam, pricing themselves above B&M. The lack of GST on online purchases was just a nice little extra cash in their pockets, they'll just have to do without it. It would be infinitely stupid to charge more than in stores. I imagine Netflix will do the same.

Anyway even with all the recent restrictions, 90% or more of my purchases come from outside of steam.

 

[DrSlek]

Don't worry guys, it's not a tax, it's a levy.

Spoiler

/s

No, no! It's a co-payment.

 

[JC Sera]

I suppose I'm going to have to give someone overseas the money and get them to gift me the game if I want anything near where fair pricing :')

 

[wintermute181]

ITT: People who don't understand why companies should pay tax. Australia gets screwed out of billions of tax revenue by overseas companies like Google and Amazon.

This is a way to enforce at least a Goods and Services Tax in our country that is applied to every product sold here. Publishers will have to lower their steam price accordingly if they want to remain competitive. If they don't, people will vote with their wallet and shop somewhere else (GoG etc).

 

[Maximo]

ITT: People who don't understand why companies should pay tax. Australia gets screwed out of billions of tax revenue by overseas companies like Google and Amazon.

This is a way to enforce at least a Goods and Services Tax in our country that is applied to every product sold here. Pu[B]blishers will have to lower their steam price accordingly[/B] if they want to remain competitive. If they don't, people will vote with their wallet and shop somewhere else (GoG etc).

Highly doubt they will, even if they do it won't be anything significant.

 

[senahorse]

Yes I am sure the likes of Activision and Namco Bandai will happily wear these costs rather than pass them on.

 

[PetriP-TNT]

Semi-related: Does AUS$ have like 80% of buying power of USD or why exactly should 60 USD be 80 AUS$?

 

[wintermute181]

That's just market forces at work, then. If they want to gouge more than they already are that's fine. Piracy is strong in Australia, they will lose business, especially as our economy weakens and people have less purchasing power.

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

Semi-related: Does AUS$ have like 80% of buying power of USD or why exactly should 60 USD be 80 AUS$?

Current exchange rate is 80 cents to the US dollar.

It was down at 75 recently.

For a few years it was above 1 US dollar per AUD. At that time it was truly outrageous to be paying 100+ USD for a new game.

 

[kruis]

Sigh. Fuck you Liberal and your shitty excuses for budget reform. So much for Hockey being a good treasurer like Ol' king Abbott proclaimed.

This is a stupid decision and wil firth stagnate digital markets from ever truly taking off in Australia.

Nonsense. It's only logical digital goods should be taxed like physical goods.

And this is going to happen:

Currently the Australia Tax is largely applied to match the prices in local bricks and mortar stores that charge GST. I can't imagine the likes of 2k, the worst of them, would then add another 10% on top on steam, pricing themselves above B&M. The lack of GST on online purchases was just a nice little extra cash in their pockets, they'll just have to do without it. It would be infinitely stupid to charge more than in stores. I imagine Netflix will do the same.

Prices will remain the same, publishers will never sell above retail prices. Same thing as in Europe.

 

[bj00rn_]

I don't see how they can possibly police this. For physical goods you can hold it at the border, intangibles are going to be a honesty system at the very best. No foreign entity is under any obligation to collect tax for the Australian Government.

But that's what they do anyway.. F.ex. it's common for the Norwegian state to send out instructions to foreign online sites how to collect taxes for them. Interestingly enough these sites usually follow because their own governments are keen on policing them because of trade agreements.

 

[2SeeKU]

So apparently it's happening:

Treasurer Joe Hockey has unveiled new measures to crack down on tax avoidance by multinational companies and extend the GST to digital downloads, the so-called "Netflix tax".
...
"When the GST legislation was originally drafted, it did not anticipate the massive growth in the supply of digital goods like movie downloads, games and eBooks from overseas."...
..
Mr Hockey would not name the 30 companies involved but said it was "pretty evident which companies are involved".

http://www.smh.com.au/business/fede...g-companies-avoiding-tax-20150511-ggyv3w.html

What other game site could he mean? I wonder is PSN or Xbox take GST like Apple do now?

 

[Urthor]

But that's what they do anyway.. F.ex. it's common for the Norwegian state to send out instructions to foreign online sites how to collect taxes for them. Interestingly enough these sites usually follow because their own governments are keen on policing them because of trade agreements.

And that works? Does Green Man charge tax to the Norweigans? Does literally every vendor on the internet charge tax to the Norweigans?

The issue with applying sales tax to online vendors for digital products is that it's a game of whack a mole. Eventually someone will set up Greenmangaming: Bemuda Banking Haven edition, and not charge sales taxes. Or people will head into the arms of the burgeoning stolen game key industry. And contrary to popular belief, the stolen key industry has all the incentive in the world to ensure people aren't shafted, most sites will earn far more money from a reputation of good service than from a reputation of shifting shady keys.

 

[Elaugaufein]

So apparently it's happening:



http://www.smh.com.au/business/fede...g-companies-avoiding-tax-20150511-ggyv3w.html

What other game site could he mean? I wonder is PSN or Xbox take GST like Apple do now?

If this actually comes with a genuine crackdown on multinational tax avoidance (as opposed to cutting company taxes and increasing (either the base or cost of) effectively regressive taxes like the GST), I may just revise my opinion on this policy. I won't be holding my breath though.

And that works? Does Green Man charge tax to the Norweigans? Does literally every vendor on the internet charge tax to the Norweigans?

The issue with applying sales tax to online vendors for digital products is that it's a game of whack a mole. Eventually someone will set up Greenmangaming: Bemuda Banking Haven edition, and not charge sales taxes. Or people will head into the arms of the burgeoning stolen game key industry. And contrary to popular belief, the stolen key industry has all the incentive in the world to ensure people aren't shafted, most sites will earn far more money from a reputation of good service than from a reputation of shifting shady keys.

The general solution is to legally pass the responsibility back to the buyer. Its not significantly more trackable but it does provide an entity that its at least theoretically possible to enforce the law against. The foreign company performing this then becomes a service rather than a hassle (like how Amazon handles custom fees etc).

 

[30yearsofhurt]

Current exchange rate is 80 cents to the US dollar.

It was down at 75 recently.

For a few years it was above 1 US dollar per AUD. At that time it was truly outrageous to be paying 100+ USD for a new game.

Most multinational companies will hedge for an exchnage rate around 80c for the USD.
So it doesn't really matter what the exchange rate is on any given day you should assume 80c when working out prices. So take a USD $60 game. Wholesale is actually USD $48 is around AUD $60 straight up. Retailer mark up of 20% takes it to AUD $72. Then add the 10% GST and you have AUD~$80.

 

[FiraB]

Good luck enforcing that Australia.

Yep just bypass that shit with a VPN.

 

[Saintruski]

Everyone knows the best way to fight piracy is to increase prices.

...NO NO NO NO..... No everyone knows the best way to fight piracy is to make media more difficult to access...Has nothing to do with piracy, pirates weren't going to buy the game in the first place...you sound like those DRM nazis adding pirated copies up like they would purchase it if they had zero option, truth is they wouldnt...

 

[JaseC]

Yep just bypass that shit with a VPN.

...which is a one-way ticket to having your account restricted. Do it "by the book" and have someone in the US buy gift copies for you in exchange for PayPal Bucks or whatever.

 

[Maximo]

...NO NO NO NO..... No everyone knows the best way to fight piracy is to make media more difficult to access...Has nothing to do with piracy, pirates weren't going to buy the game in the first place...you sound like those DRM nazis adding pirated copies up like they would purchase it if they had zero option, truth is they wouldnt...

I don't know if your joking or got into a medicine cabinet.

 

[BishopLamont]

like our prices aren't already shitty as fuck

fuck this shit

 

[Saintruski]

I don't know if your joking or got into a medicine cabinet.

No everyone knows the best way to fight piracy is to make media more difficult to access



Thats was the joke part of the whole thing and why piracy is so prominent, people are going to pirate, expensive, or cheaper, if they can afford it or not, what matters is accessibility. Piracy started big time with MP3 is internet distribution and lars ulrich of metallica fighting it...MP3 became and easy way to distribute music and to this day Hollywood and the music industry are finding it hard to get with the program and make content easily and readily accessibly. If people are a fan of the game they will get the 10% taxed game on a sale, through a 3rd party medium like G2A or something else. Pirates gonna pirate end of story. the vast majority of pirates, well over 99% meaning 99.99% of pirate who say they will purchase if they like it play the full game and just never buy it because why? I know this because i used to be one of those people, now the proud owner of 340 legitimately bought games ^_^

 

[Maximo]

No everyone knows the best way to fight piracy is to make media more difficult to access



n afford it or not, what matters is accessibility. Piracy startThats was the joke part of the whole thing and why piracy is so prominent, people are going to pirate, expensive, or cheaper, if they caed big time with MP3 is internet distribution and lars ulrich of metallica fighting it...MP3 became and easy way to distribute music and to this day Hollywood and the music industry are finding it hard to get with the program and make content easily and readily accessibly. If people are a fan of the game they will get the 10% taxed game on a sale, through a 3rd party medium like G2A or something else. Pirated gonna pirate end of story. the vast majority of pirates, well over 99% meaning 99.99% of pirate who say they will purchase if they like it play the full game and just never buy it because why? I know this because i used to be one of those people.

It was a halfway joke but seems like you have taken it to the next level. Do you have any proof to back up your paragraph ? "That was the joke part of the whole thing and why piracy is so prominent, people are going to pirate, expensive, or cheaper"

Do you have proof to back that up ? Because Links like this say * FILE SHARING PIRATES SPEND 300% MORE ON CONTENT THAN ‘HONEST’ CONSUMERS"
https://torrentfreak.com/0-more-on-content-than-honest-consumers-130510/

Yes there will be people who will Pirate no matter what but most people would rather spend money on a cheap and accessible way to view and consume content. The Australian people are fucking tired of companies bending us backwards, I know plenty of friends that don't hit up Pirate Bay anymore because Netflix came out.
"Pirates gonna pirate end of story. the vast majority of pirates, well over 99% meaning 99.99% of pirate who say they will purchase if they like it play the full game and just never buy it because why?" Once again any Links to prove that 99.99% of Pirates?

 

[Saintruski]

It was s a halfway joke but seems like you have taken it to the next level. Do you have any proof to back up your paragraph ? "That was the joke part of the whole thing and why piracy is so prominent, people are going to pirate, expensive, or cheaper"

Do you have proof to back that up ? Because Links like this say * FILE SHARING PIRATES SPEND 300% MORE ON CONTENT THAN ‘HONEST’ CONSUMERS"
https://torrentfreak.com/0-more-on-content-than-honest-consumers-130510/

Yes there will be people who will Pirate no matter what but most people would rather spend money on a cheap and accessible way to view and consume content. The Australian people are fucking tired of companies bending us backwards, I know plenty of friends that don't hit up Pirate Bay anymore because Netflix came out.

used to be a lead coder at 2 very significant private trackers and a admin at another spent a lot of time going through logs and months in IRC watching conversations...that sample size is very small, and pirates are never a very honest group i guarantee you that, if it supports their cause they will say they spend money on things they download. SHOW ME THE RECEIPTS

4 Internal encoding groups had access to netflix, about 12-25k members downloaded from those 23 internal uploaders who uploaded those netflix shows they ripped. They had the option to have netflix but didnt get it cuz the option to pirate t was there. (we also took polls on our sites like are you more likely to use popcorn time or netflix given you have access to both option was popcorn time because of image quality it downloads the whole BD file instead of streaming low bitrate "HD" files)

Piracy has no purpose other than to steal thats why i left, i used to think it had to do with changing the way things were done...sticking it to the man...nope none of that...i speak with wallet now.

Ive got plenty of links and site dumps screenshots (shredded now obviously lol) from when i used to do it but your never going to see it because it would expose about 250,000 people...a much larger sample than that lame thing torrentfreaks did to support piracy...and im pretty sure id get banned for sending imgur links to screenshot of legitament piracy website and logs

Cheap is not the problem as accessible...and the easier it is to access the better...the betetr the content is the better...then comes the price then when the price of the better easier content is FREE...something like netflix over popcorn time is laughable to them

Accessibility>Quality>Content>Price(keep in mind piracy is always free)

I also spent a lot more as a pirate when i was a pirate...i spent about 12,000 dollars on hard drives....Theres no good reason to pirate end of story

I could be lying about all that right now to make a point about that small sampled survey with a title discrediting the very people they surveyed as dishonest in the first place...

 

[Dryk]

Yes I am sure the likes of Activision and Namco Bandai will happily wear these costs rather than pass them on.

They don't have a choice. They've set the prices of their digital games to be the same price as their physical games + GST. The only ways to pass on the cost is to make their digital goods cost more than their physical goods or to increase prices across the board.

 

[senahorse]

They don't have a choice. They've set the prices of their digital games to be the same price as their physical games + GST. The only ways to pass on the cost is to make their digital goods cost more than their physical goods or to increase prices across the board.

Yes, and with those two companies, neither of those options would surprise me.

 

[xevis]

Is Australia one of these weird places where they don't include tax in shown price?

Actually Australia is one of those weird places where the sticker price includes tax. It's nice getting to the checkout and paying exactly what you expected to pay (unlike a certain English-speaking country I could name )

Back on topic, I'm not sure how they would enforce this?

 

[toddhunter]

They don't have a choice. They've set the prices of their digital games to be the same price as their physical games + GST. The only ways to pass on the cost is to make their digital goods cost more than their physical goods or to increase prices across the board.

Yep.

And at the end of the day, I'd rather that extra tax is going to the government over companies like Namco. Much less evil this way.

 

[xamidoxhua]

Some game companies already changed price for Australia and charge $89.99 USD.

So not only the mark up of USD to AUD to about $105-110AU dollars, but now add 10% more? Are you fucking kidding me...

$120 AU for a digital game?

Fuck this country I live in.

If you're paying $120 for a game you're doing it wrong. It's just the GST - if you're Australian you'll pay that on all retail disc releases or from local Steam key suppliers anyway. The real cost on this should be an extra $6-10 on new releases. Not good but not drastic.

 

[legend166]

This thread, I just can't.

 

[BishopLamont]

If you're paying $120 for a game you're doing it wrong. It's just the GST - if you're Australian you'll pay that on all retail disc releases or from local Steam key suppliers anyway. The real cost on this should be an extra $6-10 on new releases. Not good but not drastic.

yea it isn't drastic coz our prices are already shitty

 

[KooopaKid]

There wasn't any tax on it before?

 

[Gen.Grievous]

Pffff. Get on our level, 21% tax baby!

I seriously cannot wait to leave Australia.

Everytime I hear news about this country, it's always bad

You don't know what you're saying. Over here in Europe we're digging our own graves.

 

[TheVampire]

This is such bullshit.

And then people say oh just use a VPN but then you risk getting banned because of even that.

No wonder people just say fuck it and turn to piracy to get it for a free.

 

[BishopLamont]

I seriously cannot wait to leave Australia.

Everytime I hear news about this country, it's always bad

relax now, our game prices might be shit but everything else is pretty good

rather live here than europe or america

 

[Omnii-chan]

I seriously cannot wait to leave Australia.

Everytime I hear news about this country, it's always bad

I feel the same way, planning on UK myself.

 

[BibiMaghoo]

I feel the same way, planning on UK myself.

Best not, we're all moving to Scotland apparently.

 

[Tovarisc]

I feel the same way, planning on UK myself.

Going for that sidegrade?

 

[tokkun]

Most states in the US don't pay tax on digital goods unless the company is located in that state. I pay it on Amazon digital games in AZ because they have a warehouse here but not on any of the other platforms. NC is one of the few exceptions.

That's not true. Most states have sales tax on such purchases. The issue is who is responsible for collecting the tax.

Having a physical presence means that the seller is responsible for collecting the tax. Without a physical presence the seller does not collect the tax, but the buyer is still supposed to report those purchases to their states and pay an equivalent use tax. However, in practice the vast majority of people do not report these purchases and commit tax fraud.

 

[bharatiyedu]

The most annoying part is, the next time Labor is doing something stupid the same thing will happen. People will say "I want them out, and how bad can the Liberals be?" because they always forget the answer to that question.

I know, this time it had more to do with peoples confidence that Liberal party is going to do what john Howard did and the budget will be in surplus

I liked most of the policies by labor but when it comes to implementing them and enforcing them they were horrible. Also labor internally was so split up, they needed to sort themselves out in the opposition.

However Abbott is doing exactly what he blamed Labor for doing, breaking promises

 

[rusticdog]

As expected, NZ looking to piggyback the change http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/68480232/ministers-to-make-call-on-netflix-tax-in-a-few-months

New Zealand Revenue Minister Todd McClay said a report into the steps other countries were taking to collect such taxes had been completed and he expected to "make recommendations to Cabinet within the next few months"

What bothers me though is the archaic copyright legislation we still have, but I hope that when this goes through they'll recognize it doesn't matter if I use US Netflix or not, the Govt will get their money and I get access to the best services.

Seriously, NZ Netflix....53 horror movies.

 

[NCR Redslayer]

More justification for the Aus sticky thread.

 

[Elaugaufein]

As expected, NZ looking to piggyback the change http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/68480232/ministers-to-make-call-on-netflix-tax-in-a-few-months



What bothers me though is the archaic copyright legislation we still have, but I hope that when this goes through they'll recognize it doesn't matter if I use US Netflix or not, the Govt will get their money and I get access to the best services.

Seriously, NZ Netflix....53 horror movies.

Hahaha. Every trade agreement that involves the US has a mandatory chapter on making IP laws worse for consumers, so good luck with that.

 

[Henrar]

So yeah

The price hike will happen in July.

 

[JaseC]

So yeah

The price hike will happen in July.

I wonder if that's when the AU store will finally move to AUD; all of the other countries listed have local currency support.

 

[NewGame]

I only use Steam for DotA and TF2 and whatever I buy off Humblebundle. 8D

 

[Maximo]

So yeah

The price hike will happen in July.

Buy CD keys off other websites so won't effect me too much but can see this perhaps pushing more to piracy.

 

[GameAddict411]

There are always workarounds to religion locking and taxation. You can always buy keys that don't have the tax applied. You can also use a VPN server to bypass the tax as well. Shitty that they are doing this, but not shocking considering how expensive games are in Australia.

 

[FiraB]

Live in NZ now but I never buy from steam if it can be avoided. Plenty of legit alternatives to price gouging.

 

[RevenWolf]

So yeah

The price hike will happen in July.

I look forward to seeing activision titles costing $160usd because activision keeps forgettting they're charging usd not AUD...

Looks like getting steam keys is going to be the only way to get reasonable prices by the end of the year

 

[Shpeshal Nick]

Steam has always been expensive in Australia. Which is why I never understood the myth that "Steam is cheap". No it's isn't. They just have good sales on older stuff fairly often.

Their new games pricing has always been terrible. This just makes it worse.

Having said that, would This not also affect the console digital marketplaces?