Australians may face 10% tax on Steam transactions - Polidicks

[QUOTE=RoboChimp;47683551]The real question is; how easy is this going to be for Labour to repeal?[/QUOTE] GST is distributed to the states, so you'd have to ask the state Premiers and Treasurers before you change GST. And the state governments, as well as federal Labor*, are all supportive of this. Because it's fair for local retailers. [editline]9th May 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=newe6000;47684468]A. 20$ is a bit exaggerated considering it's comparing AUD to USD B. Paying minimum wage workers more does not mean that everyone gets paid more.[/QUOTE] What? How is $20 per hour exaggerated? It's literally how much you get paid to pack shelves at Coles or Woolworths or wherever. To be specific, it's actually at least $20.50 per hour. What are you even saying? How does minimum wage come in to this?

[QUOTE=LuaChobo;47683832]difference here is GST is used from business to govt unles valve set up an australian storefront they legally dont have to do shit, this isnt GST in the same way that its GST in a store netflix can be hit by it because they have an australian "storefront" valve are selling internationally to australians using a different currency, they list our ratings and ban games here because they dont want to poke our govt into shutting them down from the market GST on imported goods is determined based on 10 percent of the value of manufacturing (determined by customs agent)+shipping or is based on the price of similar goods+shipping digital goods dont get charged on this afaik, as they cost as much as it costs to download it which is fuckall i doubt this is going to go anywhere outside of netflix/etc (because people are trying to shut that down here with full force) because essentially its enforcing local tax on goods which dont even touch australia outside of the transaction though it would require valve to actually list proper prices for us, they wouldnt get away with going "yeah its 80usd + your gst figure it out yourself"[/QUOTE] Well I haven't heard of any stories about tax evasion of EU customers by them buying online and bypassing the need to pay VAT, so obviously most if not all online businesses respect that the EU countries require the sellers to collect and forward on VAT to the EU tax offices. If Europe can do it, we can do it because the GST is literally the same thing as VAT in the EU, as GST is a VAT. [editline]9th May 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=LuaChobo;47684744]hes talking about how the dollars arent 1:1 20aud = ~16usd atm so its not great to do a direct wage comparison[/QUOTE] Ok, so a shelf packer in the U.S. gets $8 per hour. A shelf packer in Australia gets $20 per hour, which works out as $16USD per hour direct conversion (not accounting for differing purchasing power for simplicity). You do realise that 16 is double of 8? So we still get paid twice as much for the same work?

[QUOTE=LuaChobo;47684785]it literally just comes down to the definition of "import" id actually support this to be honest, because in the end if it affects steam theyd need to fully support our currency and stop being fucktards if they wanna keep the market[/QUOTE] It's not like it'd make a difference for the price. I walked in to Big W yesterday and bought Project Cars for PS4. A game that has only been out for a few days, and it only cost me $78. But because I bought it from a local retailer, that $78 already includes the 10% GST. ~$71 for the game and ~$7 GST paid. Isn't it funny that online retailers charge the same price as local retailers but they don't collect GST? If I bought Project Cars online, I wouldn't have paid $71, no, I probably would have paid $78 there as well. Online retailers (for games, at least) conventionally don't undercut local retailers on sales price, so instead they charge the extra $7 to bring the price of the game up to $78 in line with local retailers, but they pocket the extra $7 rather than send it to the tax office as the local retailer would have to do. If the online retailers had to collect GST, they wouldn't want to be priced higher than local retailers, because then customers would go to the local retailers instead. So online retailers would still charge $78.

Well who the fuck would buy games online? And you completely missed my point about why sales prices from online stores wouldn't increase by even a cent when 10% GST is implemented for online stores.

Can you explain how my point was dumb? An online retailer is not going to think 'hmm I should still get the same number of sales even if I jack up my already higher prices above competing retailers' - because that would be dumb [editline]9th May 2015[/editline] Why pay $88.50 for Project Cars on steam when you can get it at Big W for $78. And when you buy it at Big W the price is GST inclusive, while you don't pay GST at Steam. Steam wouldn't bump up the prices by 10%, because if they did then people would think 'shit, $98 on Steam I might as well just go to Big W and get it for $78'. That online exclusivity stuff you mentioned that publishers would push? That's proper rubbish. Publishers wouldn't bother go to the extra effort for a market as small as Australia. And as far as I know, it's without precedent.

[QUOTE=Antdawg;47676057]No. The situation at the moment is you don't pay GST for things you buy online that cost less than $1,000[/QUOTE] I imagine the prices won't rise at all then. We pay 20% VAT on everything, but Steam's prices are the [I]normal [/I]1€=1$ and the tax is already included.

[QUOTE=Lonestriper;47676172]no, this time I was genuinely dumb![/QUOTE] I love you.

[QUOTE=LuaChobo;47685245]you are still stuck on the assumption that publishers care we already pay more on average with steam games than we do in stores and yet steam still beats out most brick and mortar stores eg, until 2 years ago (i think) cod4 was still like 60-70 usd on steam and people STILL bought it because fuck knows why i get that you have this view of our country and how our economy works, but you havent yet grasped how stupid we are as consumers, overseas australians are seen as a market that will pay whatever they ask for on physical products given pretty much any incentive. hell just look at our drug black market, i think we pay something like 400 percent what the average price is for basic recreational shit over what people pay in the USA and thats when its grown here[/QUOTE] All I can really say is, is if people aren't going to make the effort to find the best deal on the products they buy, they have no right to complain about the price. And they should really question if brand loyalty to services such as Steam is actually worth it. Like I don't just buy my games from Big W, Dying Light was funnily enough the cheapest on the PSN store because of a 30% limited time discount, so I got it there for $67 whereas places like EB games were still charging $100.

Cripes, 10%? That seems like a lot for a sales tax. Australians better have some niceass shit covered by taxes if they pay that much.

Oh joy, more expensive video-games, hooray.