Care to elaborate on this more? I Bought a $50 card a few months ago when EB was still selling the for $50 based on the rumors that Valve was going to start pricing in CDN dollars and adding tax. Is that happening on Monday or something or are you just getting ahead of the game for if or when it happens?
$50 for $50 became $50 for $55 a month or two ago when EB started moving new release full price games to $64 and $69.
Valve is introducing 12 new currencies on Monday. I have confirmation from this because developers were contacted about it. The Steam Dev Days listed CAD as an upcoming currency. I have separately confirmed that CAD is one of the 12 currencies. I have no idea how the introduction process or conversion is going to work, so I'm just speculating and hedging my risk by buying in advance in case the currency changeover hurts us.
How does tax on digital goods work in Canada Stump? For Europe, store prices are always final prices. Valve used to supply a breakdown as to what was to be paid as VAT but stopped supplying that info around mid 2011.
Most European countries have tax-included pricing. Neither Canada nor the US do (Canada moved to implemented it in the late 90s when embarking on a policy process of harmonizing sales tax across the country, but the process ultimately failed and those provinces that did adopt harmonized sales tax did not adopt tax-included pricing).
In Canada, there's a 5% federal sales tax, plus taxes on a per-province basis which range from 0% (Alberta) to ~10% (Quebec). Essential items like fresh food, baby supplies, etc are exempt from some or all of sales tax, and this also varies. Digital games are not exempt from sales tax.
Firms that are not located in Canada have no tax obligation to Canadian tax authorities, and thus do not charge taxes. For example, I can buy goods on Amazon.com and not pay taxes. If I buy goods on Amazon.ca, I do pay taxes. Steam does not charge sales tax. Microsoft does. Nintendo does. Sony I think uses USD pricing and thus does not, but I'm not sure? Maybe? I believe tax law requires Canadians who purchase stuff and do not pay tax to report those purchases to Revenue Canada; I know many American states have comparable laws. I think compliance is relatively low because no one keeps track of stuff.
Right now if you are a Canadian buying on Steam, you pay a US Dollar price. Same price as US. Because the Canadian dollar is currently worth around 88-90 cents on the American dollar, conversion will cost money. A $50 USD game on Steam would cost me around $55 CAD. My credit card or Paypal would do the conversion, add on a small fee, and charge me in CAD. Steam gift cards are available at EBGames, but since Steam does not support CAD, they redeem for USD. A $50 USD gift card in Canada costs $55 CAD right now.
Steam is introducing a number of currencies on Monday. One of them is Canadian dollars. I believe it is highly likely that this will bring with it some sort of domestic presence and tax obligation. If it does, I will effectively pay 13% higher per purchase based on my province's tax rate. If it doesn't, no harm no foul--except that developers will set their prices in CAD. Because of psychological pricing strategies (IE prices ending in .49 or .99, for example), it is highly unlikely that publishers are going to make their $50 or $60 USD games the exact equivalents in CAD. What's more likely is that $60 USD games will sell for $70 CAD, which even without the tax gives us worse pricing, like in Australia. Of course it's also possible that developers and publishers who do not realize the exchange rate or pay close attention will either not enter a price, resulting in their games no longer being available, or enter a 1:1 price, resulting in a lower price for me and less money for them.
Because of this, I bought some Steam gift cards in advance so I can build up a good USD balance on Steam. If the CAD price introduction hurts me, I'll have to spend through my USD balance first and avoid the harm. I'm moving to America in a few months anyway. If the CAD price introduction doesn't hurt me, then it's no big loss. And if they convert my USD balance to CAD, it'll presumably work at worst neutral and more likely in my favour during the conversion.