Steam (game) income

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Wurnman

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Hi all

I'm asking for a friend.

This friend has made a Visual Novel game and would like to sell it on Steam. As he told me, he had to send them a WBen8 form along with his local banking information. He hasn't actioned his game on Steam yet, as he is not sure what SARS will "take" from him should he go ahead and all sales income is sent to his bank account.

Any information on what he should be declaring and what must be paid to Sars etc.. is appreciated. Thx.
 
Well, basically he's going to earn money on Steam, in dollars. If I remember right Steam's cut is usually 30%, so all sales - 30% will be paid into his account, where it'll be converted into Rands.

SARS will know he's making money since it's being paid into his account, so when tax season comes he'll need to declare it, at which point depending on his tax status he'll have to pay SARS their rates.

I can't open the personal tax rates page on SARS now, but here's another link I found:

Companies, Trusts and Small Business Corporations (SBC) | South African Revenue Service

To see tax rates from 2014/5, see the Archive – Tax Rates webpage.
www.sars.gov.za www.sars.gov.za

So in general personal tax is going to be a lot higher than a company once you start making a decent amount of money. Personal is 18%-45%, whereas a small business is 28% or so. So if he has no other income and doesn't expect it to generate profit of > R205k, then personal at 18% tax would be best.

If he already has a job and did this as a side gig, then personal tax is going to hit him.
 
All depends on his current income, if he already has a moderately good paying job, go look at starting a company and paying through that instead.

Talk to an account if already earning enough.
 
Only transactions more than R10K get flagged by the banks, so make sure the payments ate R9 999. Good to go.
 
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