VAT on SC Stuff

[albert]

All 24 month insurance, well worth it. Herald as well.

[Galatoni]

So there is *updates ship page*

[Justin Tolerable]

Ha ha!  Finally switched my hornet tracker for the scout as I think it'll make a better recon ship for the Idris.  It hurt though, as it's now the only ship I own without LTI

[smilodon]

A positive to take from this is that CR will try and force the next concept out to be the most (suspected) popular amongst the remaining ships. He'll do the sale as a last hazzar and then, I think he knows, that will virtually wrap up expensive ships being on sale. :2cents:

I'm thinking this would be a good move. I'm sure there will continue to be a revenue stream for SC moving forward but I do believe there needs to be the beginning of a shift of emphasis towards the things that we can do 'in game' and maybe only do in game i.e we can't buy them in the store. As the planet-side, first person and persistent universe start to appear it's important that players get into the mind set of what they're going to do in game, what their avatar will look like (I'm well into planning Selina Smiloslinky, the 19 year old ex bikini model now bounty hunter..... well as Sheepy said so eloquently "If I'm going to have to stare at my character ass for hours on end it might as well be easy on the eye"), where they are going to put in the work and what sort of return/reward they want to see from that effort.

 For example if you're going to trade then it would be good to begin to see how the process will work, what the business opportunities are, how you'll make credits in game and what your upgrade or improvement path might be. I'd like to see players starting to talk more about how they plan on building their haulage empire and obtaining a fleet of branded Merchantmen in game, for example. I think ships should still be for sale but it would be good to see some 'assets' that can only be acquired in game for game currency. This will change the emphasis from buying stuff to support the game development over to planning for the game proper.

[Galatoni]

You speak sense. I must admit though, and i believe i've mentioned this before. I'm concerned that the revenue stream will dry up once this (inevitable) phase of the game comes in. I'm thinking how a game like this could maintain this incredible level of development of a (lets face it) AAA+ title and still be viable.

[albert]

It's happened:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]3014[/ATTACH]

and EU:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]3015[/ATTACH]

43.56 Euro equals
49.16 US Dollar


So a $5.40 or 11% more expensive suggesting that US tax on digital goods is 10%.

In the case an Aurora LN package. â,¬36 up to â,¬43.56 of course 21%.

I'm a bit confused because when I bought that package would US based pledgers get their local tax added to the $45 price based on their billing address OR were RSI simply not apply tax to any transactions?

[Galatoni]

I think it's usually up to individuals to work out and pay their tax much like self assessed people in the UK. I thjnk.

[smilodon]

As far as I know in the US each state sets it's own sales tax and adds it at the end of the buying process, as it's not always obvious which state a purchase will apply to. Also each state decides what sort of goods their specific sales tax is added to and what rate different types of goods are taxed at. So it's a bit of a minefield.  

Obviously in the UK and the EU the VAT is a fixed price which by law has to be shown on marked prices right at the beginning of the sales process for retail sales. So RSI can't advertise a product at £100 and then add the VAT  (20%) as the purchaser makes the transaction. It has to be shown on the ticket price (on-line store) as £120. Therefore UK prices (and I think EU price as well) will include a sales tax (VAT) up front and US retail prices won't. I think there is a law waiting to be passed that would require US companies to charge sales tax for on-line purchases based on where the purchaser  lived (or their credit card billing address was). So at the moment I don't believe RSI collects any sales tax on purchases made on-line. I wonder what people in the US will do if the law does come in. Maybe drive over a state border to buy an Amazon Gift card where the sales tax is less than their own state. Would that be legal or tax avoidance....? :eyebrow:

[albert]

I think it's usually up to individuals to work out and pay their tax much like self assessed people in the UK. I thjnk.

That's on income tax, like much of Europe, you have to do an assessment and verify you're paying what you owe.

US sales tax as Smilo says goes on in the payment part of a transaction and is state dependent. In California it's 8.4%!

What I'm getting at is I never had an address or country linked to my RSI account when I first pledged, so they never knew where I lived and no tax was added in the basket. So did RSI simply not charge anyone tax? Technically they should have verifies my location by linking it to the registered card account or PayPal verified address. None of that happened that I could see. Could it be RSI's website were dodging tax and now they've been told to pay up?

[TeaLeaf]

Afaiaa it is an EU rule change which enforces the changes, although many non-EU business are simply ignoring it and continuing to sell to EU customers without accounting to the relevant EU jurisdiction for any VAT.    The changes came into force on 1st January 2015, so I think RSI chose to give us a little time to absorb the changes before enforcing the new rules, simply because it is highly unlikely that the loss of 30 days VAT from a now compliant business (RSI) is worth more than chasing down a non-compliant business.

As far as your comments Albert, a compliant business should be obtaining two forms of geographical ID from you when purchase in order to determine the correct VAT to apply.  Usually this is your billing address for the credit card and an IP.   In practice, I have no idea how they actually comply!

So, do we all go out and use our USA visa card now for purchases from RSI?

[albert]

Well RSI's website does a grand job of challenging us on our GeoIP address and or registered address to force the right EU VAT to be applied to the purchase. Darn Dutch have a 21% VAT rate! $75 becomes $91.

[albert]

So we havd vat to pay now and we pay in our own local currency right? I'm a subscriber and I'm seeing the cost fluctuate every month..is this right?

[Gorion]

They might be using USD to EUR currency exchange rates?

[albert]

I thought prices are fixed when there there's a local shop in region? I know product prices fluctuate but digital subscriptions.

[Gorion]

The "shop" is in the US right?

So, if they do currency conversion, you're bound to get different pricing?