VAT on digital goods and services in SA from April: Treasury

I just love this comment: "The added taxes on digital goods is likely to push the price of goods up, a tax expert has said."

Really? No wonder he's an expert. I would never have thought that in a million years.
 
What if the consumer buys directly from the "export country" via a local channel?

This can be coupled with commissions, affiliation fees etc.
 
Also want to know how this is enforced and collected? So I buy a eBook on my Kindle or an iOS newstand subscription from Apple, will SARS dig through all my credit card transactions and then impose VAT on those?

It's a pity that VAT is imposed for the purpose of collecting extra tax-revenue which will be blown by the government for all sorts of meaningless initiatives. It would have been much better to use the collected funds to incubate local players and create some competitive parity.
 
Would companies like Blizzard etc be in compliance with WoW Subs etc in time for this?
 
Wow, I've never seen such determination to encourage piracy.
 
MagicDude4Eva said:
Also want to know how this is enforced and collected? So I buy a eBook on my Kindle or an iOS newstand subscription from Apple, will SARS dig through all my credit card transactions and then impose VAT on those?

It's a pity that VAT is imposed for the purpose of collecting extra tax-revenue which will be blown by the government for all sorts of meaningless initiatives. It would have been much better to use the collected funds to incubate local players and create some competitive parity.
Click to expand...

Near every transaction our company make is via PayPal, who will allow them to dig within PayPal?

I really would love to see the audit process entailing this, we don't even know how they will audit PoPI yet...
 
What about Steam? Will I get taxed during the transaction? Or do I get a automatic SARS deduction based on there findings?

This is crap. Once again, all these draft regulations but absolutely no indication how the VAT will be applied.
 
I can see how they can force the big players like itunes, amazon etc. But there are many small (obscure) players selling the odd script / template piece of software to South Africans. Are they really going after those as well.

What is considered a digital good. If I buy hosting overseas which obviously is consumed overseas as the servers are overseas. Same like international domain names. The scripst I buy get installed on my overseas hosting so they never ever come into south africa. Where is the line they are going to draw
 
Haha It seems that SARS does not respect that the fact that the transaction happens "in another country" where the "server is hosted" and thus is part of that jurisdiction as per the ECT act. So try force a foreign country with no presence in SA to comply and they'll get either the middle finger or since SA customers are insignificant will probably just result in the "This service is restricted" or similar. This is like the US telling a SA company to charge tax on behalf of the citizen buying their services and then submitting that tax on a monthly basis to the IRS. It's not practical.
 
moklet said:
I can see how they can force the big players like itunes, amazon etc.
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I don't - I think Apple, Amazon, Steam and PayPal will tell them to go fsck themselves. Unless I am missing something, there is no way this can be enforced unless international companies comply and why should they?
 
Educational services
distance teaching programmes;
educational webcasts;
internet-based courses;
internet-based education programmes; or
webinars,
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I don't understand why they would target education as one of the areas that this tax apply to.
 
Enforce 1 april. Early April fools?
Then again every day is april fools in this circus.
 
Is the idea to blanket charge VAT on all international online credit card transactions?? That is really the only way to enforce this, well at the consumer level.
 
TJ99 said:
Wow, I've never seen such determination to encourage piracy.
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^This.
LOL!

Just another brain fart from a generation of Omies and Tannies in power who have no idea how the real world works.
I don't know if they've noticed, but our local media and content industry isn't exactly making waves, this will barely grease the trough. Taxing the goose before the egg is even laid.
 
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Bern said:
Is the idea to blanket charge VAT on all international online credit card transactions?? That is really the only way to enforce this, well at the consumer level.
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With the declining Rand, we've had more than that.

So move money offshore and use offshore credit card for purchases? Only problem is that cost of moving money is significant.
 
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