Valve has decided not to raise prices on Steam due to the “Google tax”

The Russian value added tax on Steam was included in the price of the product: the store deducts the tax not from users, but from itself and developers.

On January 1, 2017, a value-added tax on the sale of digital content to Russian users by foreign companies came into force in Russia. Any sites that are not officially Russian companies are now required to deduct tax from digital sales in Russia.

Google and Nintendo have raised the cost of their products in connection with the law. Valve decided not to raise prices. She invested the new tax in the prices set by the developer in the store. Now, both the developer and the platform itself receive a smaller amount from each sale.

The Steam team gives the following example:

But there is a nuance. VAT in Russia is calculated as follows: 18% is added to the cost of the product. The final cost of the product is its original price plus 18%. From this amount, 15.25% goes to the tax service.

Example:

• The amount without VAT is 100 rubles.
• VAT 18% – 18 rubles.
• The amount with VAT is 118 rubles.

Further, to determine the content in the total amount of VAT, it is multiplied by 15.25%.

118 multiply by 15.25% – 17.995 rubles.

So, in theory, it is 15.25% from 10,000 that Steam should pay to the Russian state. This is also in the law:

The original of the law can be found here
In addition to Russia, a value-added tax on the sale of electronic goods and services was introduced in Norway.

It is more than in Russia – 25%. Valve expects that in the near future the list of countries with similar taxes will increase.