GW Noob.6038 Posted March 25, 2022 Share Posted March 25, 2022 (edited) Title. I wanted to buy 8,000 gems and they were attempting to charge me $110...so, a $10 dollar tax tacked on. Never gonna happen! No more Gem Store stuff for me. Edited March 25, 2022 by GW Noob.6038 3 2 8 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Solvar.7953 Posted March 25, 2022 Share Posted March 25, 2022 At a guess, when they changed their payment provider a few months back. Sales tax (I'm presuming you are talking US states here) are odd, but generally if the one doing the transaction has business in the state of the person doing the purchase, they have to charge sales tax. It is possible that the previous provider did not have any business presence in your state, but that the new one does. 1 5 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tukaram.8256 Posted March 25, 2022 Share Posted March 25, 2022 I am unsure when they did not charge tax. I no longer live in the US, but my billing address is Texas. Every time I make a purchase I get charged Texas sales tax. Until a few years ago many online companies did not charge tax, but they got slapped a little, and began charging. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danikat.8537 Posted March 25, 2022 Share Posted March 25, 2022 (edited) Note: This post was written before the OP was edited to add more detail. Are you literally referring to a sales tax? As in when you bought gems with real money the final cost included a line marked as tax which wasn't there before? Or do you mean the price of an item within the gem store has gone up and you're interpreting that increase as a form of taxation? In the first case it's not Anet doing it. Taxes are set by governments, not by companies. Like @Solvar.7953 I'm assuming you're in the USA because I've seen this question come up a few times for different online games and it always seems to be someone in the US asking. As I understand it sales tax there is set by individual states and doesn't always apply to digital goods, but what is taxed and how much seems to change frequently. So if you are asking about an actual tax on buying gems the first step is to check for news coming from your local or national government about changes to taxes. If you mean some other cost within the game - like an item has gotten more expensive than it used to be then you'll need to tell us what it is before we can comment. Edited March 25, 2022 by Danikat.8537 6 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inculpatus cedo.9234 Posted March 25, 2022 Share Posted March 25, 2022 Must be very recent because the last time I bought Gems (2 or 3 weeks ago), there was not added tax. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BobbyT.7192 Posted March 25, 2022 Share Posted March 25, 2022 "cries in canadian" eh 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheGrimm.5624 Posted March 25, 2022 Share Posted March 25, 2022 15 hours ago, GW Noob.6038 said: Title. Ask your local or federal government. Game companies don't create tax laws, governments do. 10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darklord Roy.2514 Posted March 25, 2022 Share Posted March 25, 2022 17 hours ago, GW Noob.6038 said: Title. I wanted to buy 8,000 gems and they were attempting to charge me $110...so, a $10 dollar tax tacked on. Never gonna happen! No more Gem Store stuff for me. Not sure what you mean. Sales tax on purchasing gems with real money has been there for quite a while, I haven't made a gem purchase in years and the last time I did there was a tax associated (bought $10 worth of gems and after tax it was about $10.80 ish). Anet also doesn't control that, the US government does. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Donari.5237 Posted March 25, 2022 Share Posted March 25, 2022 It may depend on when your particular state started assessing sales tax on digital transactions. I know in my state I've been paying sales tax on gems since before the UI overhaul that integrated payment into the game panel rather than making me go into a browser. A few months at least. There was no way online orders were going to remain tax free forever. It was years ago that states were complaining about how the big online retailers were doing business without the states getting a cut, and thus residents were shopping at those retailers instead of locally. So it's just a matter of when various jurisdictions have managed to set up laws and systems to charge and collect the tax. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rorschach.5721 Posted March 25, 2022 Share Posted March 25, 2022 That's not a "Gem Store" purchase. It's a purchase of Gems. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Greyhawk.9107 Posted March 25, 2022 Share Posted March 25, 2022 20 hours ago, GW Noob.6038 said: Title. I wanted to buy 8,000 gems and they were attempting to charge me $110...so, a $10 dollar tax tacked on. Never gonna happen! No more Gem Store stuff for me. By definition a Tax is something done by Governments, not by the businesses themselves. That's who you blame: the MFing GOVERNMENT. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shining One.1635 Posted March 25, 2022 Share Posted March 25, 2022 As many others have mentioned, this is going to vary by location. In the US, some states tax these digital purchases and others do not. My state currently does not. Some players get around this by purchasing digital gem cards from online retailers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GW Noob.6038 Posted March 25, 2022 Author Share Posted March 25, 2022 1 hour ago, The Greyhawk.9107 said: By definition a Tax is something done by Governments, not by the businesses themselves. That's who you blame: the MFing GOVERNMENT. They never charge a tax before. I can't imagine the MFing government waiting all these years to start taxing me! Like the other guys said: they changed their payment method and THAT's when it started. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Donari.5237 Posted March 26, 2022 Share Posted March 26, 2022 (edited) 5 hours ago, GW Noob.6038 said: They never charge a tax before. I can't imagine the MFing government waiting all these years to start taxing me! Like the other guys said: they changed their payment method and THAT's when it started. It could be they had to change the method as part of revamping to meet the legal requirements. Governments seldom move very fast when reacting to brand new situations. Online orders of *physical* goods were avoiding sales tax thanks to the purchaser and seller being in different jurisdictions so the buyer could say "I'm not paying tax somewhere I don't live" and the seller could say "I didn't sell it in this state, I don't have to pay taxes." Then came the complication of states having to separately legislate their rules in conjunction with federal interstate commerce law established long before the internet was even imagined. Even when new laws are passed, they take time before they take effect -- for example, in Maryland, early October is when the laws change. Add in that the really big companies (eg Amazon) were throwing a lot of weight against any legislation that would make customers revert to local purchasing and it's no wonder it took a while for MMO currency purchases to get categorized into definably taxable commerce. As others have mentioned, a company doesn't tax you. But it sure can get in trouble if it doesn't collect legally required tax to hand over to the government that has set the tax. And it has no motive to cover the tax cost itself, that almost always gets passed on to the customer. (I have known some Renn Fest merchants that deliberately set their prices so the tax would round things up to even prices easy to hand over in cash so they could just say "That's ten bucks, no tax" and then pay over the required taxes without the customers being hassled about it). I personally don't object to the government collecting tax. I like decent roads and solid public education and a robust health care infrastructure, and have always assumed my actual salary is about 2/3 of the amount shown on paper and the other third was never mine to start with, salaries being determined with the awareness the employee will be deciding to accept based on the actual spending power they'll receive. (I understand that the taxes are not always equitably distributed, but they are still needed to fund the various services government is *supposed* to provide). You of course may hold different fiscal views as to what the government needs. Just please don't get your facts wrong about this: ANet is not nefariously and maliciously adding tax, they are meeting their legal obligations. If you think that makes gems cost too much or don't want the government collecting your money, it is your choice whether or not to buy the gems. Edited March 26, 2022 by Donari.5237 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Forgotten Legend.9281 Posted March 26, 2022 Share Posted March 26, 2022 (edited) i live in Texas, and i've been paying taxes on Gem Purchases for years. EDIT: i have an email receipt from October, 2012 showing that they collected sales tax on my purchase. Edited March 26, 2022 by Forgotten Legend.9281 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inculpatus cedo.9234 Posted March 26, 2022 Share Posted March 26, 2022 Your anger is misplaced if you are punishing ArenaNet. Speak to your Franchise Tax Board, instead. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hylden.7468 Posted March 26, 2022 Share Posted March 26, 2022 The problem isn't Anet, but the country you live in and it' tax laws. In US you always get shown a price without tax and then it's added in after purchase. In EU you're always shown a price including tax, hence no surprise there. 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Falcos.1523 Posted March 26, 2022 Share Posted March 26, 2022 I'm just weighing in as an Australian that I get charged a US-style tax for gems. This is the only game that does this. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zera.9435 Posted March 26, 2022 Share Posted March 26, 2022 ArenaNet does not tax players for gem purchases. Your local/state/federal/national government does. It varies by where you live. Taxes are as much a part of life as having to work for a living. Welcome to adulthood. 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Telravyn.2653 Posted March 26, 2022 Share Posted March 26, 2022 Another reason why purchases of gems are taxed vs no tax in some other games may be that gems are not (insert country currency). There's no tax on say, adding funds to your steam wallet, because it's just moving the same type of currency from one place to another; but gems don't even translate 1:1 to cents (in the US at least) so they're treated as digital goods by tax laws. Being in WA state I've always had to pay sales tax on gems, since Anet is based in the same state. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CaptJack.3148 Posted March 27, 2022 Share Posted March 27, 2022 Sales tax on digital goods has been a thing for quite a few years. Possibly a decade or more. Have you recently moved from a place that didn't charge sales tax to a place that does charge it? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CaptJack.3148 Posted March 27, 2022 Share Posted March 27, 2022 On 3/25/2022 at 10:26 AM, Inculpatus cedo.9234 said: Must be very recent because the last time I bought Gems (2 or 3 weeks ago), there was not added tax. Do you pay sales tax on normal purchases in your state or country? I believe taxes are collected based on location of the person making the purchase. For example, I live in Texas, and all purchases in Texas have 8.25% sales tax, including online purchases. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inculpatus cedo.9234 Posted March 27, 2022 Share Posted March 27, 2022 I do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ashgar.3024 Posted March 27, 2022 Share Posted March 27, 2022 (edited) On 3/24/2022 at 9:46 PM, GW Noob.6038 said: Title. I wanted to buy 8,000 gems and they were attempting to charge me $110...so, a $10 dollar tax tacked on. Never gonna happen! No more Gem Store stuff for me. Since wherever you live made it law that taxes apply to digital goods. In some places it only happened a few years ago (like where i live, in Quebec), so if its your first purchase in a while its why you see the difference. Anet themselves didn't increase their prices. Edited March 27, 2022 by Ashgar.3024 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tukaram.8256 Posted March 28, 2022 Share Posted March 28, 2022 On 3/26/2022 at 2:11 PM, Hylden.7468 said: The problem isn't Anet, but the country you live in and it' tax laws. In US you always get shown a price without tax and then it's added in after purchase. In EU you're always shown a price including tax, hence no surprise there. I like seeing the actual price, including tax. I grew up in the US and was used to our silly system, but as soon as I emigrated to the Philippines I loved seeing the actual total price on the sticker. However, my credit cards are still from the US... so ANet bills me as if I were still in Texas... taxes added later ha ha 😎 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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