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Page Indexing and Tax Information Interview

A topic by PolyTrauma Studios created Jul 18, 2022 Views: 760 Replies: 19
Viewing posts 1 to 3
(1 edit)

I published my game 7 days ago but the project is still not showing up on the itch storefront, and is not searchable.

I was about to email the costumer support but I realized that they haven't even answered my email from 10 days ago about the Tax Withholding Rate, which should be 0% according to our Interview but is still showing 30% under our Account's Settings.

I don't want to be pushy, but I'm wondering: is this normal? What are the average waiting time for being allowed to be indexed and show up on the storefront? What about getting answers from costumer support?

I realize it's summer and things may be a bit slower than usual, but this feels like something is not working like it should.

Should I ping them again, this time mentioning both issues?

Moderator

Did you read the rules to this category and the Search & Browse FAQ?

Sorry, I missed the part where I should have mentioned I read the FAQ and everything related, and yes I indeed confirm I did everything that is suggested in the documentation.

Moderator(+1)

Okay, please wait a little longer, things take time these days.

It's been 16 days since I published, and the title is still unsearchable.

I don't want to be pedantic, but the FAQ mentions: "We generally review these the same day projects are published. Although your page may not be indexed indexed during this time, it is still published and fully functional via your profile and URL. We appreciate your patience for this step."

As I said, I understand all the reasons why this process may take longer than usual, but we're entering the third week while I anticipated a few days of delay at most, and it's starting to be a problem . Any chances of knowing if we are getting scrutinized this week, at least?

Moderator(+1)

I don't know, sorry. The game in question is Isolata, right?

Yep

Moderator(+1)

I gave it a bump. Sorry for the long delay.

Thank you very much, really appreciated!

(2 edits)

The game is now searchable (yay), and appears in the storefront... except, it's not where I was expecting it to be.

If you search for Most Recent, 15$ or less, it has been placed at the very bottom of the list, among those titles that ACTUALLY got published around the time we made our game public (in theory, of course, since it needed approval and, therefore, wasn't in the storefront).

By comparison, using the same ordering (Most Recent, $15 or less), This title, which got published 10 days ago, but like ours needed approval (allegedly) is showing  right at the top, where it should be. Another title, 6 days since going public, yet showing pretty high in the list. One last example, 14 days, displayed among the most recent ones.

To summarize, all these examples are getting listed by their time of approval (since they needed it), not publication, while my title is getting listed by its actual publication date.

Would it be possible to get this last issue fixed, pretty please? Thank you 🙂

Moderator

First of all I almost missed your post because you didn't reply to me directly. Second, that sounds unlikely. New projects are listed by the date when they were made public, not when they were approved for the index. If that's not the case, maybe there's a bug.

(2 edits) (+2)

Did you end up getting that tax issue answered/fixed? I've been waiting on a reply from support regarding that issue for 3 weeks, but no response to my email yet.

Edit: let me clarify to see if we're running into the same issue. The first reply I got when I asked about this issue on July 1st is

"Thanks for reaching out. We recently made a change which defers the tax validation process which may detect the final withholding rate.

You final withholding rate will be available by the time you are requesting a payout.

If the issue persists and you need to retake the tax interview, you can do so through the following link:

https://itch.io/user/settings/seller/tax-information?retake

Thank you, let us know if you need further assistance."

I already retook the tax interview just before reaching out to support, I think (I filled it in twice anyway). I read the email and understood it as, "it might take a while to show up, wait until you can request your payouts". Which I did, but on July 8th the tax rate was still at 30%, at which time I sent a second email (no reply).

I just filled it in a third time, getting the confirmation that my tax withholding rate should be 0% IN the interview, but the issue persists.

Edit 2: Just figured this out, but replying here in case anyone wants to search for this on the forums. The "available for payout" amount reflected the 30% tax rate amount. But once I requested a payout, something seemed to click in the system and the warning is now gone in the tax info tab, and the actual payout reflects the 0% withholding rate.

Thank you very much for the information! It is weird that Itch does not notify people of this issue, though. It could save tons of wasted time.

I know, I've been spending a lot of time trying to troubleshoot this. :') But yeah, hoping some people will find this instead of emailing support and then waiting.

(1 edit)

Yeah I was about to reply this, apparently, according to a lot of users in the forum, IF you did everything correctly, the withholding rate under your Profile Settings will update and show the correct amount upon requesting your first payout. Itch should really just put it in the warning message they display, it would save a ton of forum posts that way.

(+1)

Oh then I guess I should have searched a bit more thoroughly! Oh well, I guess I just added one more message about this for people to find.

No worries, I did the same. I didn't find it at first so I emailed them. It's really counter-intuitive the way it works.

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