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Playstation Network purchases to be taxed starting April 1st 2017

K

Khrno

Member
jedivulcan said:
Pulled this off the ol' Wikipedia page for digital taxation. If you're grey then you're okay. (and if you're green then you're really okay).
Click to expand...

What do you mean by "really okay"? (I'm not from the US and don't know what state is that one from just looking at the map with no state names)
 
B

borghe

Loves the Greater Toronto Area
Welcome to the rest of us. WI has had tax collected since early last year from PSN.
 
S

Son Of Sparda

Member
jedivulcan said:
Pulled this off the ol' Wikipedia page for digital taxation. If you're grey then you're okay. (and if you're green then you're really okay).
Click to expand...

NY is safe! Yaaaay!

Edit: For any non-Americans (like myself) that have NA accounts:
ELHdiP2iz.png
Click to expand...
 
B

borghe

Loves the Greater Toronto Area
slit said:
The same way you can go to other online marketplaces and not pay. Sales tax is collected by states, not by the federal gov't. If the business is in another state, they are under no obligation to collect the tax for the state of the purchaser. That's why it took so long for them to start collecting for Amazon.
Click to expand...
Sort of sort of not. Traditionally, if the business is registered to do business in the state, it has to collect sales tax. Nintendo used to have authorized service centers in WI back in the 80s, so have ALWAYS collected sales tax from us, because they were always licensed in the state. When Amazon opened their distribution center in Kenosha, they had to start collecting sales tax.

Not sure how much progress has been made for online sales with no physical presence.. but if an online company is collecting sales tax from you, chances are they have a physical location somewhere that they are conducting business out of.
 
J

Jason Frost

Member
krae_man said:
PSN was taxed in Canada until the hack and it suddenly stopped when PSN came back after the hack. I just assumed someone forgot put it back in and nobody noticed until it was too late and they didn't want to take PSN down again to fix it.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I noticed that too in 2011 and I thought the exactly the same thing, they forgot to add it back, lol...
 
I

Ihyll

Junior Member
So no reason to buy digital games anymore for me...I'm in TX

I'll just take advantage of Amazon's 20℅ off new games....
 
N

Norris1020

Member
So like many people I buy an amazon digital code because psn is psn. So I guess that means a $20 code will not cover a $20 price on psn now?
 
Audioboxer

Audioboxer

Member
I guess it's unethical but just change your billing address lol. Considering the half of GAF that doesn't live in America has an American PSN account for sales and what not, it's not like any of us actually live in America. Random properties in random states are some of PSNs best customers :p

Out of interest though, would this technically be breaking a state or federal law? Not that I'd ever guess Sony would act on it or share any of your personal details. Buy store cards and set your PSN account to another state is the way around it. Others seem to suggest it's just as easy to do on a Wii U or Xbox. As I just asked though, it would be interesting to know if it's genuinely breaking any laws, or if it is simply about ethics.
 
X

Xenus

Member
Audioboxer said:
I guess it's unethical but just change your billing address lol. Considering the half of GAF that doesn't live in America has an American PSN account for sales and what not, it's not like any of us actually live in America. Random properties in random states are some of PSNs best customers :p

Out of interest though, would this technically be breaking a state or federal law? Not that I'd ever guess Sony would act on it or share any of your personal details. Buy store cards and set your PSN account to another state is the way around it. Others seem to suggest it's just as easy to do on a Wii U or Xbox. As I just asked though, it would be interesting to know if it's genuinely breaking any laws, or if it is simply about ethics.
Click to expand...

Basically you are breaking tax law via the IRS assuming you actually live in the US and do taxes. But it'd require an audit for them to find you and may or may not be worth it depending on how much you spent online. If you are international but buying digitally um I have no clue and I'm not sure the IRS really has accounted for that yet.
 
Audioboxer

Audioboxer

Member
Xenus said:
Basically you are breaking tax law via the IRS assuming you actually live in the US and do taxes. But it'd require an audit for them to find you and may or may not be worth it depending on how much you spent online. If you are international but buying digitally um I have no clue and I'm not sure the IRS really has accounted for that yet.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the quick summary. I guess the future digital age is a head scratcher for ways in which the government can seize and control the market. As the consoles are all finally moving away from region locking it leaves the free market to largely do as it pleases. Microsoft are even better than Sony with a region free store. You don't even need a dummy account :p

PC gaming has been at these stages for ages though. VPNs even lead to buying directly from and unlocking games before your countries date. Although this has lead to the gray market taking off and all the morality based questions around it.

I think as long as the publishers and developers are swimming in cash they won't push back too much. The government though? It's probably an ongoing debate on how to tackle digital goods. Especially when it comes to the likes of PC gamers buying Russian steam keys for like 1/3rd less. How do they stop that? Just like how do they stop dummy PSN accounts? It's not like Sony can force IDing all sign ups.... Unless our archaic and big brother future could be all digital accounts needing identification verification. *shudder*

I mean if it's ethics/morals for an American individual, then create another dummy American account and treat it like a deals account Europeans do for American PSN lol. Set it to a primary account and you can still play all the games bought on it on your main account, registered in your actual address... Soo many "loopholes" around this and ethics/morals. Digital ownership has always been a crap shoot, as let's not even go into the fact licenses can just be revoked like that, even although you've paid money for something. So I guess if it's all about sleeping well at night, everyone from consumers to devs/pubs and the government are all vying over how to handle a digital future. Pretty much why I say fuck it and still buy discs when I can. DRM free options on a PC rock too.
 
V

VanWinkle

Member
I didn't get an e-mail. but I'm almost certain they already charge me tax. It's been awhile since I bought anything from the PSN store though, so I can't remember for sure.
 
X

Xenus

Member
Audioboxer said:
Thanks for the quick summary. I guess the future digital age is a head scratcher for ways in which the government can seize and control the market. As the consoles are all finally moving away from region locking it leaves the free market to largely do as it pleases. Microsoft are even better than Sony with a region free store. You don't even need a dummy account :p

PC gaming has been at these stages for ages though. VPNs even lead to buying directly from and unlocking games before your countries date. Although this has lead to the gray market taking off and all the morality based questions around it.

I think as long as the publishers and developers are swimming in cash they won't push back too much. The government though? It's probably an ongoing debate on how to tackle digital goods. Especially when it comes to the likes of PC gamers buying Russian steam keys for like 1/3rd less. How do they stop that? Just like how do they stop dummy PSN accounts? It's not like Sony can force IDing all sign ups.... Unless our archaic and big brother future could be all digital accounts needing identification verification. *shudder*

I mean if it's ethics/morals for an American individual, then create another dummy American account and treat it like a deals account Europeans do for American PSN lol. Set it to a primary account and you can still play all the games bought on it on your main account, registered in your actual address... Soo many "loopholes" around this and ethics/morals. Digital ownership has always been a crap shoot, as let's not even go into the fact licenses can just be revoked like that, even although you've paid money for something. So I guess if it's all about sleeping well at night, everyone from consumers to devs/pubs and the government are all vying over how to handle a digital future. Pretty much why I say fuck it and still buy discs when I can. DRM free options on a PC rock too.
Click to expand...

It probably will ed up boiling down to wherever your account location is gets the taxes. Thus Non-americans will flock to the states that don't have sales tax while Americans they will attempt to audit it. There is also the difference that not just statewide taxes are different but they can vary from city to city within the state. Aka my job moved from a city that had income tax to one that didn't and since I was in a school district which tax was a property tax I payed no income tax outside the state and federal level. Saves few hundred a year. Lol just I can imagine in the future when some town of 1000. Puts in a sales tax of 1% where everywhere else is 7% just to get boatloads of internet tax revenue from people who don't actually live there.
 
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