SOTA Development hurt by taxes and excessive regulatory controls

Such a shame when a small company is being hurt so badly by government regulations and taxes. I could only imagine the manpower "wasted" complying with GDPR requirements, regulatory controls, taxes, and VAT (another tax), for a company struggling to support a global community.

I feel for you Catnip Games, so much time and money would better be spent on development of the game.

 

yep that why most game companies sell via Steam

 

What is the source of this info? Was this mentioned on Atos' stream yesterday?

 

I'm not so sure that Catnip would agree with this. It seems to me they are a good tax loving company.

 

Here

Spoiler: Spoiler

 

Having worked in a taxing authority agency and I can tell you that it is very easy to comply with 99% of the tax laws around the world. You either need to read or HIRE a specialist. That's what most companies do. If individuals don't have trouble completing their yearly tax requirements, companies shouldn't either. In fact, companies should be more compliant than individuals. To sit there and feel pity for a company to be tax compliant is a waste of manpower.

 

I'm an individual and struggle to figure out and PAY my taxes every year. We hired an Accountant, but its expensive and still time consuming. We have no business, only individual taxes. I've heard of many companies struggling with GDPR requirements. A global company has to know current and ever evolving regulations and taxes for all of their areas of operation.

A corporate tax attorney makes a lot of money, because they are worth it.

 

Taxes are needed to run civilization (or to dissuade from foreign goods). Regulations are not spontaneous, and usually arise because companies fail to do the right thing. Corporations are not to be trusted to do the right thing, and I support regulations to keep them on a tight leash to protect the people from incompetent or malicious companies. If a company cannot comply with GDPR, they don't deserve to exist.

 

Im not sure to understand this thread. Is this company not having any tax number in 5 years? And why the heck would you register for a VAT in EU if your company reside in USA?
And as far as i know, GDPR is for the security of the user, nothing to do with tax, nothing to pay, just follow the rules and principles, which is VERY easy to follow.

 

I believe Port/Travian’s VAT number was being used before now. Could be completely wrong though, did Port have a VAT num?. That should have stopped when Travian/Portalarium peeled away from one another and Catnip took over.
Although VAT was still being taken even though Catnip has no VAT number yet, so not sure what VAT number was being used between Port/Travian and now, only Chris can answer that.

Hopefully that all gets sorted out quickly. I’m surprised it’s taking so long to go through the registration process.

For why there is a need for a USA company to have EU VAT number. Catnip has to have a VAT number to be able to claim VAT from EU and UK customers. Chris is saying he is in the process of getting a MOSS VAT number which covers digital sales, though hasn’t detailed which EU countries he has applied for VAT and whether or not he has a VAT for UK (as I believe you can only apply for one with the MOSS VAT?)

As for GDPR I guess the cost would be for the web developer to update the site to be GDPR compliant and for someone to be available to provide any information or delete information any users may wish for over time, but I don’t understand why there would be other cost above and beyond that.
Edit: Maybe he was meaning the combined costs of vat compliance and GDPR?

 

Who is now confused - here is a short summary:
https://www.rsm.global/insights/tax-news/europe-how-european-vat-impacts-us-companies

 

We blame Unity, Allergies, old employees, vacations, and now taxes for hurting development? At some point there won’t be anyone or thing left to blame except ourselves.

 

I blame Mondain.

 

You're next!

 

Looks like the whole reddit group is reunited in a single thread here.

 

Greetings all and @Chris
Sorry you are having so much trouble with Lawyer based stuff. It defiantly takes away from world building.

So much confusion and so little knowledge. I am currently stationed overseas and would normally have to pay VAT but it is amazing what you don't have to/or do have to do when you say Diplomat. There are 2 sections to this confusion. VAT vrs GDPR.

VAT : The Value Added Tax, or VAT, in the European Union is a general, broadly based consumption tax assessed on the value added to goods and services. (did you like that I used green for a money issue? VAT is only applied on things that are consumed is applied. Things shipped out of the country do not usually have VAT applied. What is meant by "Consumed" is that they are used, eaten,imported into, or otherwise enjoyed in the EU area. If you are from the US as I ma think of it this way. The us does/did not charge tax on items in states that were bought where the company that made those products did not have a physical presence in that state. The intent was for companies not having a presence would not have to collect ta on the sale and send it to the state where the product was sold. The internet changes this because the states decided they were loosing too much money in this global environment. VAT is like this.

GDPR: The General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 is a regulation in EU law on data protection and privacy in the European Union and the European Economic Area. It also addresses the transfer of personal data outside the EU and EEA area "Danger Will Robinson". This law replaced another less strict law: {color=orange]The Data Protection Directive, officially Directive 95/46/EC on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, is a European Union directive adopted in 1995 which regulates the processing of personal data within the European Union.[/color] They both are there to protect the user and as a side issue to protect the company if a data breach happens.

PS what did Obama have to do with this? The regulation was changed based on a knee jerk reaction to corporate/user privacy in the UK.

I hope this helps. I am not a tax/business major, just know how to google stuff.
VAT: https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/business/vat/what-is-vat_en
GDPR: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Data_Protection_Regulation
Data Protection Directive, officially Directive 95/46/EC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Protection_Directive

 

Greetings Avatars,

there is some vocabulary used different.

MOSS (MiniOneStopShop) is just to secure that people who order IT Software pay the correct VAT.
It is only for EU states.

For states, not in EU, it works this way:

EU law says, a download is "delivered" in the land where it is used, if a private customer purchases.
Invoices to private customers must be issued with the sales tax of the respective country of the customer (since July 1, 2003).
For example, downloading from Germany, you have to pay 19% VAT, downloading from Austria is 20% VAT.
[Information about EU VAT can be found here].

That VAT has to be transferred to the tax office. Good shops are providing a sheet for each land with the correct VAT.
And shop software often has an interface to send this information to the tax office.

If you are from another state, you can centrally register in ONE EU state of your choice to handle the taxation stuff with.
That means with the VAT of the respective country in which the private service recipient is located, tax returns have to be made to the state of your registration and the tax amounts owed have to be paid.
The Member States then receive the sales tax due to them from the sales of the third country companies to non-taxable private customers via a clearing procedure.

Information can be found here:
https://www.bzst.de/DE/Unternehmen/Umsatzsteuer/eCommerce/ecommerce_node.html


What land to choose to regsiter?
Before brexit I would have recommend Great Britain because of the language.
Well, after that may be Germany.
@Chris, if I can help somehow about German tax information - let me know

Spoiler: At the moment I would recommend to wait, what happens AFTER Corona "crisis".[/COLOR]

The EU seems to fall apart ...
Greece was down long before and Italy burned EU flags ...

Your invested time for tax declarations could be a waste of time ...

 

What? Maybe lost in translation but it is more then just an IT thing.
MOSS is used by businesses wishing to provide digital services to EU consumers. I.e. in SotAs case, digital sales of virtual assets.
A different VAT would be required for physical goods sales to EU consumers.

 

Well, I didn't want to put it in a complicated way.

A little more specific:
MOSS: The procedure is aimed at entrepreneurs who are resident in Germany and providing Telecommunications, radio and television services or electronically services to private individuals in another member state of the European Union (EU) for a fee.
Since January 1, 2019, entrepreneurs with small and medium-sized sales have an exception to the location of the services provided.

For those not from EU the VAT on e-Service procedure is applied.
I guess, Catnip (Portalarium) is not an Entrepreneurs based in an EU country?

Physical goods are not taxed by sending from EU in not EU countries.
(Customs could be calculated).

Goods movements within the EU are taxed according to the EU VAT tax rates (of each country).
Differences in the amount of VAT in for example Germany: for Books, magazines, newspapers, staple food = 7% reduced tax rate. Normal tax rate is 19%.

For more details, please visit the link and translate the infos about MOSS or VAT on e-Services procedure

 

Ultimately it's nothing more than any other company should be doing and really has nothing to do with game development disappointments !

Non issue.