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Admin (2 edits) (+4)

Currently VAT is implemented on top of the product price (aka VAT exclusive), so your revenue will never be reduced if VAT is collected on a transaction. This may change in the future though since it's counter-intuitive to how European buyers expect pricing to work. VAT is not an income tax, it's a sales tax. So there's no threshold's about how much money you make and whether VAT is collected or not.

On your dashboard's home screen, itch.io reports "Gross Revenue," which is the sum of the amounts people paid for your goods (minus sales tax, like VAT). So if 10 people paid 5 dollars, then $50 will be reported.

The payouts screen breaks down your actual earnings, after subtracting any relevant fees. This represents how much you get paid after everything is settled. These fees include:

  • itch.io's revenue share - set by you on your account settings
  • Payment processor fee per transaction
  • US withholding tax (for international payees only)
  • Account adjustments
    • Any fees from money transfers that previously happened
    • Tax identity verification
    • Refunds/Fraud that were overpaid to you in a previous payout

itch.io only makes money from our revenue share, highlighted in bold above. All of the other fees are passed through directly. Why do we do this? Because we let you set revenue share to 0%. Those additional fees represent a substantial amount of money going through the system and we would be unable to operate if we did not structure payments in a way that prevents us from losing money by just having someone on our platform. (Although we do make an exception by covering the cost of bandwidth)

Hope that explains everything.

Also, please avoid making topic titles in all caps with excessive punctuation. So other people can find answers when they have similar questions, write a brief summary of your question as the topic title.

Thanks

I see, i understand now and the caps was because VAT is  how it's spelt with caps but i do apologise about the punctuation. Itch.io says it themselves that the industry standard is 30% and it's default is 10% however i'm only recieving 60% of my gross revanue which means they are taking 30% before paypal takes their cut of course. It seems abit shady to me. At the very least it should say "10%+fees".

Admin(+1)

Keep it mind it also depends on how you price your project. If you sell a game for 1 dollar then the flat rate processor fee of 30 cents is going to be a substantial portion of the revenue. If you sell a game for 10 dollars then that fee is effectively 1/10 the amount.

Hi there, I have a question.

  • US withholding tax (for international payees only)

This is for sales only from US, or if I sell in other countries I'm also charged this tax?

(+2)

The way I understand it is that you pay this tax as soon as you transfer profit you made in the US to a country outside the US. All money you made is made in the US as Itch is an American company. So this means as soon as you initiate your payout, and you live outside the US, you pay this tax on all of your profits.

I see, very heavy then.

I probably will stick back to the old legacy system. I hope they enable BRL as a currecy soon too.

I mean, you have to look at the trade deal your country has with the US. For me, being from Belgium this is in my advantage. If I didn't pay taxes in the US, as a freelancer I'd have to pay 50% of my profit as taxes to Belgium. But thanks to the trade deal that is now 30% to the US and 0% to Belgium. ;) People living in the US don't have to pay this tax, but they probably have to pay sort of an income tax at some point, which is unrelated to Itch, hence not mentioned.

That's my problem, I have to pay 30% to receive my revenue since I'm from Brazil and my country don't have any trade deal with USA. =(

(+1)

oh, that's hefty indeed. sorry to hear that. :/

I got this from Steam panel:

"Payments made to you may be subject to US tax withholdings per US tax reporting regulations. Developers may be eligible for a reduced or exempt rate of US tax withholding on units sold to US customers if your country of permanent residence has an income tax treaty with the US. At the end of the interview, you will be notified of the US withholding tax rate, if any, that may apply to you."

So, this withholding tax should apply only for sales for U.S.A. customers, right?

I don' t know about Steam, maybe they have a branch in Europe(/brazil?, I doubt it ;) ). If they do have a branch in your country, you won't have to pay the tax cut I guess.


But with Itch (and I assume steam as well honestly) any payment (either by US, European or Brazilian citizen) is made to an American Company (Itch, Steam, ...). So the money you make, is made in the US. This means you pay this tax on all money you made.