Steam Collecting Tax

I just purchased The Museum 1 from Steam and noticed that they charged me my States Sales Tax which I never noticed this on other purchases. Has anyone else experienced this? Maybe this has been going on for a while and I just didn't notice. Isn't Steam based in another Country besides the USA?

Steam has been charging me tax for a few years now.

Since 2015.

Really? I just checked all my previous purchases and this is the first time they added the Tax for me. Might this be something to do with where the Developer is located? For instance if the Developer is located either in my State or the USA? I can't find out where they are from to see if this may be the case.

I've been charged tax on every purchase since some time in 2015. The receipt I looked at from then is from June. I didn't look at all of them but I know that once they started taxing me, there was never any purchase that was not taxed. I believe it has to do with the state you live in but I'm not sure. I don't mind paying sales tax for on-line purchases but I don't really think downloads, at least of downloads that I cannot save to a disc, should be taxable, but...

I know that with Big Fish games, depending on what state you are in you either get charged with sales tax or you don't.

And Steam/Valve is in the state of Washington.

Big Fish does NOT charge me tax but I think they are supposed to.

Depends on your state for on-line retailers collecting taxes. Amazon has started collecting taxes in Missouri.

It does make sense since there is so much on-line shopping now, that's why I don't mind it. I had never set out to avoid paying tax when I started shopping on-line. It was just a happy coincidence for awhile, though technically a person was expected to pay it at the end of the year when they filed their taxes. The downloading stuff falls under "use tax" rather than "sales tax" I think.

And sometimes it depends on if there is a physical company presence in your state OR how much on-line sales a company has to a particular state. (Something like that anyway.) I know they are cracking down on Illinois on-line purchases now though.

I was always under the impression that the rule used to be here in the States (although who knows what rules are now)that if an Online retailer had a physical presence in a State that they had to add the Tax i.e. Amazon building Fulfillment Centers in your State. Or there is a brick & mortar store or warehouse. If no physical presence then it would be up to the buyer to declare purchases on there yearly taxes. Since Steam has no physical presence anywhere and I think based in another country (could be wrong) that is why I am so surprised.

@Oldbroad
I agree, paying what one owes in taxes is always the right thing to do. But my opinion, the easiest way here in the States, would be for the seller to charge the buyer the Tax rate from the State that they are in which across the board would not place a burden on Retailers having to keep track of all the different States tax rates, who purchases from where and then sending different payments to each State. In my way of thinking, if I want to purchase items from a State that has a lesser tax then that would put the States in more competition with each other to bring their tax rates down for Online sales and/or encourage more Online Retailers to move to their States so they may add to their coffers. It just seems so simple to me.

GreyFuss, Marian stated this above.

oops, I completely missed Marians Post, sorry!
Thank you

That tax system sounds really weird to me !!

Here in the U.K. As far as I'm aware. Buyers pay tax at the point of purchase. It's called Value Added Tax.

I think one of the reasons it's so complicated here is that each state has different taxes. The VAT is the same everywhere if I'm not mistaken. It IS a burden on the on-line retailers to have to keep track of every state they do business in to collect taxes. But as more and more commerce shifts to on-line retailers, the states realized how many million of dollars they were missing out on. Many state coffers are suffering as a result, so the push was on to collect taxes. The rule WAS that taxes were only collected if the on-line retailer had a brick and mortar presence in a state. No longer, but it still differs from state to state.

Yes, this sounds really weird. Here in Sweden, we also pay tax at the point of purchase. It's called MOMS, by the way. Excellent system.

So do Big Fish, Steam, GOG, Amazon, etc. charge you tax in the UK and Sweden?

With anything bought here in the UK (that's eligible for tax) the purchase price paid will already have included the tax - whether it's an on-line or "from a brick & mortar store" purchase.

And that applies to purchases from overseas also

Same in Sweden, except for physical sales from overseas.

Thanks Mad and Mikael.

https://www.usgamer.net/articles/chicago...ticle9-headline

This article from Crain's Chicago Business is about Chicago "amusement tax" so, the tax issue may not even be your state, but instead, your city.