Lame!

[Scribble]

My point here is that for something like World of Warcraft I have never heard that California residents have to pay tax on top of their subscription fees.

Correct, CA residents don't have to pay for it but others do:


From the WoW website:

Players in select states around the U.S. have found that their monthly subscription fee is slightly higher than expected. With the rise of many online subscription-based services, several states have begun to apply a tax to services that use such a model, and this tax is an additional cost that players are seeing added onto the base subscription rate.

Specifically, residents of the following states will be charged this tax:

Illinois
Massachusetts
New Mexico
New York
Texas
Washington

 

[Spatula]

They can't do that. Online sellers are mandated by the state to collect sales tax from state residents if they have a physical presence (HQ, sales office, warehouse, etc.) in that state. That's true of everyone, not just WotC or Digital River.

No one absorbs the cost of taxes in the price of the goods they're selling. If you're not paying sales tax to an online seller, you either live in a jurisdiction that doesn't charge sales tax, or the seller doesn't have a physical presence where you live.

He's saying WotC should eat (absorb) the cost of the sales tax, like every other other online subscription model that I've ever seen.

 

[garyh]

Correct, CA residents don't have to pay for it but others do:

From the WoW website:

Odd, given that Blizzard is based in California.

 

[Scribble]

Odd, given that Blizzard is based in California.

Who knows?

Maybe they have a sub company based in those other states that handles their billing stuff?

 

[Brown Jenkin]

Correct, CA residents don't have to pay for it but others do:

I stand corrected and find it odd, but oh well.

 

[Piratecat]

Hey, stupid question: if you subscribe three months from now, say, do you get access to all the archives as well?

 

[Scribble]

Hey, stupid question: if you subscribe three months from now, say, do you get access to all the archives as well?

It does not appear that way.

 

[Piratecat]

Yikes. So sign up now and download everything, or you forever lose this content?

 

[Scribble]

Yikes. So sign up now and download everything, or you forever lose this content?

Yeah that kind of bugs me too... I would like the system to be smart enough to track when you were eligible, and customize your archives to match.

 

[Glyfair]

Odd, given that Blizzard is based in California.

It sounds like the issue is that California just doesn't tax online subscriptions. They states listed above due.

Technically I don't believe it is a "sales" tax, but some sort of services tax. I don't believe there is an actual "sale" here (rather you are paying for services).

I used to work in a video store here in Delaware. We used to get a lot of grief because of the rental tax we charged. Delaware has no sales tax, but it does have a rental tax. Since most people didn't rent anything except movies, they never saw it and weren't used to dealing with it.