Reinbach
patreon
One Last Update on the Patreon Tax Thing
🕑 Added 2020-06-29 23:16:48 +0000 UTCHey in case you didn't remember, the new Patreon tax plan goes into effect day after tomorrow. Here's what I've put together now that it comes down to it:
-It shouldn't change anything at all if you live in Europe.
-It won't affect every state in the US, but Patreon is a bit vague in the post as to exactly what states will or won't be affected exactly.
-If the tax on your pledge does go up, the example they gave was that on a monthly pledge of five dollars, you could be charged anywhere from an additional ten cents to fifty cents depending on where you live.
-They also said the nature of my rewards may affect what new taxes apply. So I was instructed to state my rewards as clearly as possible in my tier descriptions for their A.I. to sort efficiently. (A chilling prospect I'll admit.) After giving them another look I deemed my rewards already described as clearly as I can make them without drawing diagrams. I gave all my tiers all the same "exclusive content" tag in the list of descriptions Patreon provided.
And that's what I know. Personally it rattles me whenever the company that puts a roof over my head decides to try and fix what isn't broken and shake things up for me and my supporters. But in this case it does sound like the situation is outside of Patreon's control, and they're just reacting here as best they can.
I hope I've explained things well enough. If any of you decide to lower or drop your pledges I completely understand. If not, thank you as always for your support, and I'll see you Thursday with the next page of TRW.
Comments
Reinbach
I suppose yeah. Man there are a lot of variables to this mess it seems.
Emmett
I did some reading about Connecticut's tax laws and it looks like basically all digital goods, except for Magazines and Newspapers (and one or two other things that don't even relate), are getting their general sales and use tax of 6.35%. So it looks like at least folks from that state are gonna get hit regardless of how you qualify your stuff, big guy. I imagine the closest general goods descriptors are, like, ebooks and videogames, right?
Reinbach
Oh yeah, I feel bad for professional Youtubers in a big way. They get some fresh bomb dropped on their livelihoods like 3-4 times a year.
Lord Washington
Doesn’t sound as bad as the bullshit YouTube is throwing.
Reinbach
Well I just made another pass and added "digital downloads" to my description tags. But that doesn't explicitly state that i don't do physical stuff. So I'll take another look now.
Tukaro
I've seen other Patreon accounts say they can explicitly state whether or not a tier includes physical goods that would be shipped. Are you not able to do this? Or is that not a setting that will appear until tomorrow?
Stan Hanks
it's worse if you run a platform where they're coming after you. Currently there are almost 10,000 sales tax jurisdictions - state, county, city, all sorts of stuff. and if you take payments? you're responsible for compliance. big penalties. at least Patreon keeps you from having to do that directly
Reinbach
Dark times indeed.
Reinbach
Generally correct I'm sure. XD
Reinbach
Well that would be a nice surprise, if this were to not impact my page at all since I'm all digital. I guess we'll find out soon enough!
Dr.Berilio
Everyone wants a piece of the cake, specially if its yours
Reinbach
Ugh, man what a mess.
InkstainedFox
It comes done to do you ship out real world goods as a pledge reward. If so they may asses taxes. The united states doesn't have a uniform tax policy on a state level. A lot of companies were declaring themselves catalogue outlets to only pay the highest taxes and skimp on paperwork.
Stan Hanks
In the US, sale tax is stupidly complicated. Previously, the law of the land was that you could not be assessed sales tax unless the seller had a physical presence at the point where you bought from them. Walk into a store and buy, pay sales tax; buy via mail, or phone, or Internet, no sales tax because there's no physical presence. That was fine until Amazon got so big, and everyone wanted a piece of their sales. Eventually Amazon stopped fighting it, and then having lost the biggest ally in the fight, everyone else did too. What you're seeing is the result of that.
The Funny Hatter
F
