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Steam prices set to jump 10% in Australia as tax hike is confirmed

StarCraft II

If you’re living in Australia, the prices of your Steam games look like they’ll be about to jump up 10%. It’s thanks to a new tax on ‘intangible’ digital imports that will be introduced in Australia’s 2015 budget, designed to make up for downloads dodging the country’s Goods and Services Tax. 

Nicknamed the ‘Netflix tax’ by Australians, Australian federal treasurer Joe Hockey confirmed today that the increase would be included in the 2015 budget.

“It is plainly unfair that a supplier of digital products into Australia is not charging the GST whilst someone locally has to charge the GST,” Hockeysaid today.

“When the GST legislation was originally drafted, it did not anticipate the massive growth in the supply of digital goods like movie downloads, games and e-books from overseas.”

The introduction of the tax is set to make $350 million Australian over the next four years. Whilst the tax will almost certainly affect Steam, it will no doubt be difficult for the Australian government to chase down all of the smaller online shops that sell Steam keys at drastically reduced prices.

Thanks, PC Gamer.