Valve Steam - Taxes?

[arcticking]

When buying a game online from steam, do they apply taxes to your online purchase? (Since its a download and all)

I am planning on pre-ordering Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Limited Edition for $49.99 USD, and I live in Canada. So do the taxes from Canada apply to the price? (already included the currency conversion)

 

[randomizer]

Not as far as I know. Valve games are always priced equally in Aus and the US (other publishers deliberately raise prices for Aus), and we must have 10% tax included in the price or a clear statement that it has been excluded. But the game was not sold in Aus, and therefore is not subject to that law because the Government is not getting a cut. I would assume that the same applies for you.

 

[arcticking]

So the price stated on the steam website is already tax included?
So.. basically the stated $49.99 is already including tax? Im really confused because Steam states something else.

 

[randomizer]

Well if it includes tax it would be American taxes only. You don't have any taxes applied for different regions. Otherwise, as I said before, all prices would have to be 10% higher here without exception (although the price excluding tax can be advertised as long as this is clearly noted to be the case. The final price would still be 10% higher if the tax existed.) But no prices are higher due to taxes, only due to the price hikes that publishers like to give us because retail prices are so high here and they don't want to butcher retail sales.

In short: any taxes that you'd normally be charged in Canada will not apply to Steam purchases.

 

[arcticking]

Best answer selected by arcticking.