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Steam Prices May Increase in Australia And New Zealand Due To New Tax Jurisdictions

On the plus side, you've probably been getting tax-free games up to this point.

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Steam will be including sales tax in storefront prices across 10 countries including Australia and New Zealand, to comply with new tax jurisdictions requiring sales tax be applied to digital goods and services.

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In an email sent to Steam parners today, the following countries will be adding region-appropriate sales tax to all purchases, from the months listed:

  • March 2017:
    • Switzerland 8%
    • South Korea 10%
    • Japan 8%
    • New Zealand 15%
    • Iceland 24%
    • South Africa 14%
    • India 15%
  • April 2017:
    • Serbia 20%
  • May 2017:
    • Taiwan 5%
  • July 2017:
    • Australia 10%

The email states that tax amounts will be included in the advertised price of games on Steam, to align with how VAT is treated in the EU. "This means the customer will pay the price displayed on the storefront, and the tax will be separated out afterwards," it reads.

Based on what we understand of Steam's back-end partner tools, this will result in the storefront prices of games from the above regions to be increased by the percentages listed. We have contacted Valve for clarification.

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