I've been doing math with my gross revenue and my available balance for withdrawal, and the numbers do not add up after taking into account itch.io 's cut.
I think somebody is stealing from me, with the "tax" excuse and I suspect it's US and European countries.
I'm being extorted by the local bully already, I don't want another hand from across the world in my pockets as well. How can I make my content unavailable to the countries with intent to steal from me?
The tax you are having issues with, withholding tax, is one only applied to income that is classified as “US source income” for transactions that go through our Payouts system. On itch.io, we look at the buyer’s information to determine the source in order to find out if we should apply the withholding tax on the revenue generated by a particular transaction.
Generally speaking:
Hypothetically speaking, your request to block US buyers will prevent the collection of withholding tax, but it will also prevent you from collecting the remaining revenue from those transactions. You would just be losing out on revenue.
That said, we currently don’t expose tools to block regional purchases except for extreme cases where there is a legal reason to block the transaction.
Hope that explains.
You have a confusion of terms.
The tax that a buyer pays depending on their country is called VAT.
The tax withholding is for the seller's profits and has nothing to do with the country from which the game was purchased, but rather with the country of the store.
Itch responds to the US IRS, and any transaction where you must be paid is governed by those laws.
If you don't live in the USA, and you don't want to pay taxes in the USA, you should sell through a store that has nothing to do with the USA and unfortunately, Itch, it doesn't work for you.
EDIT:
I'm not 100% sure, but I think that Itch's direct payment option allows you to continue distributing the game via Itch and have your accounting system completely independent, but I don't know if that forces you to pay US taxes or not, it is It is better that you consult with support or a local lawyer in your country to avoid any legal problems.
Without entering into any moral debate. I'm just trying to help you with the information I know.
As I already told you, tax withholding is a legal issue for Itch because Itch is a US store.
It is not an issue that Itch wants you to pay taxes in the USA, it is an issue that it is obliged to report profits to the IRS.
We may like it or not, but the moment you accept Itch's conditions and fill out a US tax form, you are accepting those rules and there is no way around them.
The alternative is to sell the game in a store that is not located in the USA, and if you want to avoid double taxation, it should be a store in your country of legal residence or in a country that has a tax treaty with your country.
Again, I'm not sure if the "direct pay to you" mode It would allow you to do what you want. And I don't want to give you any advice that could be a legal problem for you, better consult directly with support or a lawyer.
https://itch.io/docs/creators/payments#payment-modes/direct-to-you
You contracted with itch to sell your games in their store. Their store is located in the US. Your sales are subject to US sales laws, including tax laws.
Paying taxes is not "theft." Paying taxes in a country that's not where you live is not "theft" if you're doing business in that country. You're selling on a US website; you are doing business in the US. It is possible the tax cut would happen regardless of who buys the games, because the sales are going through a US business.
Itch may have a way for you to have your games displayed in their store, but sold by some other processor. (But probably not. Itch wants their cut for hosting the files and making them available via search.)
Itch probably does not have a way to restrict buyers by country (or IP address, or email domain name, or anything else). Part of why not, is that anyone could be using a VPN; there's no way to confirm whether a buyer lives in a particular country.
There may be an issue with your account, where too much is being withdrawn; you'll need to contact the support team to make sure your settings are correct. But other than that - if you don't want to pay US and European taxes, you will probably need to find a store that isn't operating in the US and Europe.
Who said I want to evade taxes?
Tax is the money that government extort from you in the name of upkeeping the city and country that you live in. I don't live in US, why do I have to give them half of the money I'm spending my valuable time to earn? If Fani Willis wants romantic getaways with her lover boy she should extort US citizens, not me.
upkeeping the city and country that you live in
There are three parties involved. Not one. It is the seller, the buyer and the platform. You are making a business transaction in the US. Do "you" collect the money in your home country's currency or in US Dollars? Actually you can add 4-8 more parties involved to that equation. An actual bank for seller and buyer. A parasite service like paypal and payoneer/stripe and maybe one or two credit cards companies.
Depending on jurisdiction, sale items have to show the price the customer pays - or not. Prices on itch are displayed without tax, as is customary in US.
In the end, of course the buyer pays for everything, including your item. Your business calculations should reflect that in your pricing.
Who said I want to evade taxes?
You deem taxation as unjustified, calling it theft makes that very clear. You even want to evade taxes by not selling in the first place. ;-)
I'm not talking about all of the process that goes on before I receive the money, itch should slap those costs on the client's total.
And I'm not talking about how much paypal takes from the withdrawn money, I pay that anyways.
I'm talking about the difference between balance that I've sold and the balance that I can withdraw.
And yes, I think taxation is theft, since it goes to the dirty politicians and their corrupt contracts, funding wars, distributing drugs, DEI, woke bullshit, growing the government like cancer, and oppressing people. It never goes to a worthy cause that helps the citizens.
Not selling to them is not evading, it's refusing to take their money in the first place.
Ahh, but that is customer mentality you display there. Not business mentality. You think in net profit, like selling from customer to customer in a yard sale, yet you have to think in gross profit.
A customer's payment is net for the customer (+ vat where they do not add vat before checkout).
That payment is gross for the business and there goes away all the fees and taxes till it becomes net income, that in the end would pay your salary.
As for taxes themselves, feel free to point out a system in history that worked better. At least we now mostly have percentage based taxes. A society as an entity needs funding. You can of course rightfully complain about the specifics and about people abusing it. Or you can try to boycott certain national systems. But if you want to boycott US system, you better not sell on an US platform.
It sounds like you could be making the wrong assumption.
The credit card companies, PayPal, and Stripe charge a fee for someone to buy your game. That fee is carried over to your account. Once every three years you must complete a tax certificate which costs $3 (last time I checked).
See: https://itch.io/docs/creators/payments
If it was tax, your tax certificate would highlight that. If your country has a tax treaty with the US there won't be any tax withholding, only the fees. The fees can still constitute a large chunk of your earnings if you have a lot of small transactions.
In contrast, other companies absorb the fees in their 30% commissions. But because Itch.io doesn't enforce a commission, they can't pay for the fees themselves.
There is two issues:
1- my country doesn't have a tax treaty with US.
2 - the fees should be paid by the clients not the seller.
But I'm being forced to pay for hotels to host illegal aliens that don't work.
Even that 30% sounds more reasonable compare to the half that I'm missing over here. At least they're upfront in the percent they'll take, and I can factor that into my prices.
Why should the client be paying for a service they're providing to you?
More importantly, how can they stay in business if they cover the costs your business creates for them?
Half does sound like a lot; you should look into the account fee structure and see if you're missing something, like if there's a minimum per purchase, or some settings that could be changed.
Your other options include raising your prices, as you've mentioned (which is what most businesses do, to cover the costs of licenses and tax fees - they need to make income on top of those, so the prices are raised to cover for them), or selling on a platform like Steam, which allows regional price differences.
Unfortunately greed of the taxman always hurts the consumer and the platform.
Instead of handling taxes the right way, the platform passes the cost to the seller, and the seller will pass the cost to the client. At the end it will make using the platform more expensive for the client, and that hurts the platform's competitiveness
Hi Kia! I'd suggest selecting "Direct to you" payout mode and having a serious conversation with your parents about getting the bully in control. If your parents doesn't seem to be helpful to you, then please go the school social worker and tell her/him that money is being mugged from you. I would recommend consulting with a reasonable adult before you go to the social worker if no proper support is being or could be received from the parents. This could be a teacher you can trust or a reasonable family member.
If the school social worker is incapable of providing proper action towards the bully, please go to the administration of the school or report it to the police with a parent, or a teacher being with you. You have to effectively communicate to them how serious this is.
Take care, and respect your own self!
Not really, most of it goes to corrupt officials that have nothing better to do than creating laws to oppress us, throw us in jail and limit our freedoms.
We are paying for police force that hate us, educational system that make our kids dumb, healthcare that keeps us sick, militaries that starts wars and the economy that keeps us poor.
We would've thrive if only the government would've leave us alone.
We both are more or less correct. It's just important to not forget about the good things the tax system brings. You might live in a country where the most or at least some things stated by you are true, but the things you have said are the things you think about, maybe more than you should. The things you think about can have and most likely has a massive impact of your well being. The things you can change are the ones that have the biggest impact on you, so I suggest focusing on them.
Your thoughts shape you and often impact the way your life goes. Take care of yourself!
