I bought a lot of assets trough the asset store sales in the last half year and every time I feel ripped off.
Just today I wanted to buy Flow, it is priced at 35$ in the 24 hour sale.
When I try to buy it, Unity converts it to 33.25€.
A quick check in Google shows that 35$ are actually 26.90€.
Why can’t I have real exchange rates and if that’s not possible, why can’t I pay in dollars through PayPal?
Another question, do these inflated prices get paid out to the developers, or are you just paying them 70% of 35$ in this example, even if I send you more money?
Denmark has 25% VAT (Mehrwertsteuer / Umsatzsteuer), when you pay in Euro the danish VAT will be added for citizens of the EU.
It ist very different in each country: In the US for example, residents of Texas must pay VAT if they buy in an online store located in Texas, while residents of other states don’t need to pay the VAT. That’s why in the USA the prices usually are shown excluding VAT.
BTW: As an EU-Citizen usually you don’t need to pay VAT if you buy in an online store situated in an other EU-Country when you enter your sales tax identification number (Umsatzsteuer-Identifikationsnummer). I don’t know if this is possible in the asset store also (I was to lazy to make an application for a sales tax identification number during the last years) but I think I saw it when buying Unity.
Edit: VIC20 is right, they use Denmark.
If they don’t sort it out soon for us europeans, I won’t buy anything from them anymore.
I paid the 25% extra on my Unity 3 and 4 license and even though I have a registered business I wasn’t able to get it back until now.
Afaik it’s also illegal in europe to advertise a dollar price without VAT and then give me a totally different price at checkout.
They use DENMARK (not Ireland) because Unity Technologies is originally an EU based company from Copenhagen, Denmark - they moved their HQ to San Francisco a few years ago… I guess because this somehow saved them taxes in their biggest market, or because of the much nicer weather
To be able to tax the german Mehrwertsteuer they would need to add an asset store for each country.
BTW: When you are mostly selling Apps on the Apple App Store you don’t get any VAT from Apple and you don’t have to pay any VAT/UST to the german tax office because those sales are “nicht steuerbar”. I don’t know how Android Stores works, possibly it is different there. This means when you don’t be a “Kleingewerbe” you will be able to get your paid VAT back while you usually don’t have to give the Finanzamt any UST except for those jobs where you have invoiced UST.
The asset store (in the Unity application) always shows me prices in Euro including VAT - I never see the prices listed in Dollar, maybe you just should change your settings?
Do what I did, create a new account for buying assets and list your address as somewhere in america. You get the assets at the USD price
Once the Assets are downloaded and you switch back to your original account, all assets downloaded from both accounts can be accessed in unity.
The U.S. has no VAT at all actually. Most states have a sales tax, but it’s not VAT. A sales tax is applied only when something is sold, rather than at each stage of production.
I don’t think you understand…VAT is applied at each state of production. Sales tax is only applied at the end. So, not the same. (VAT stands for “value added tax”, and applied whenever there is value added.)
I’m currently making my first purchase on the asset store, Apex Path is priced on sale at $47.50 and when I press checkout the price is suddenly 50.49€. The Euro is worth more than the American dollar. I mean for gods sake put the VAT somewhere so I know what the extra money is going towards.
When an American checks out, do they have to pay GST on top of the listed price? In Europe it is very common to include all taxes in the price at the point of sale.
So it is unnerving to pay this fake-listed amount.
You pay sales tax only if the company selling has a presence in your state. With unity having no presence in Missouri, I don’t pay sales tax on the asset store
The total VAT of the entire production is finally paid by the end customer. All companies get all the VAT they paid back from the tax authority and it does not raise the price for the customer in any way except for the final tax itself. Companies can count any VAT they have collected against the VAT they have paid. The difference has to be paid or is what they get back from the tax authorities. But at the very end the final PRIVATE individual has to pay the entire VAT.
No question, this is a system with total unnecessary steps which creates nothing but additional paperwork for zero effect when compared to a pure end customer sales tax. And it was misused a lot in the past because it offeres/offered a lot of opportunities to trick the system.
On the other hand when a sales tax means that companies have to pay the sales tax too (do they have to?) then I would prefer VAT because it would be better for the economy.
Sales tax laws vary by State. Some states don’t charge it at all. For those that do, some entities never pay sales tax (like government agencies). In some States, non-profit groups, charities or educational institutions do not pay sales tax. In some states, specific categories of items are exempt from sales tax (medicine, food, and clothing are the most common). Items that are resold are usually exempt from sales taxes. Again, the circumstances will vary by State. States are free to modify this at well. Some have specific “Tax Free” days to stimulate spending (for example, when the new School year starts, etc. ). Sales tax is not charged to citizens of other States if the delivery of the merchandise occurs in a state that the seller does not have a presence in. This makes most internet shopping Tax Free for many Americans.
It’s a complex nightmare, and I’m quite certain that money is not charged when it should be, or is charged when it should not be. And that’s not even including that municipalities and counties can each charge their own sales taxes on top of the State sales tax (if one exists), and have their own exemptions.
Then it is somehow less „united" and more complex than inner-EU trade and basically the same thing as VAT because some goods also have reduced VAT or are even free of VAT (postal stamps for example). The newst rule here is that the VAT for online payments like Apps belongs to the customers state of residence.
I want to know I live in Canada I wish to purchase (world creator professional) it lists it at $189,00 and i don’t know what that is going to be USD EURO in Canadian dollars if it is in the euro that means im going to pay $270.87 if that is the case you just lost a sale there is no way in hell im going to pay almost a hundred dollars more than the list price.
