Russian officials plan to levy another tax on foreign gaming stores: Steam, Epic Games Store, PS Store and others. They want to send the money collected with its help to the fund for the support of patriotic games. UPDATED: The Ministry of Finance of Russia has denied information about plans to finance the development of such games at the expense of new taxes.Black Book
This is reported by Kommersant with reference to a source from the government.
According to the publication, the sites may be required to give up to 5% of sales in Russia to the treasury. We can talk about 10 billion rubles a year.
Alexander Zhuravlev, head of the Commission on legal support of the digital Economy of the Moscow branch of the Association of Lawyers of Russia, believes that there is nothing surprising in such an initiative. He argues that finding a source of funding is the main issue when developing any support measures. As an example, Zhuravlev referred to the experience of other countries. He pointed out that France has a tax on digital platforms, and Denmark plans to introduce a special tax to support the film industry.
According to Boris Yedidin, Deputy Director General for Legal Affairs of the Internet Development Institute, the introduction of such a tax is not easy. He believes that “companies can simply start optimizing revenue by changing consolidation points.”
At the same time Vyacheslav Makarov, creative producer WarGaming.net , believes that Steam and other sites “will perceive these 5% as unpleasant, but not critical losses.” However, he also notes that it will be much more difficult to use the collected funds correctly. He fears that officials may start requiring developers to conduct campaigning in their games, which is why such projects may fail.
“It is much worse if there are demands to turn the game into a political campaign, since projects in which the ideological part prevails over the quality of the study, the market, as a rule, ignores,” Makarov says.
Recall that the government’s plans to launch a fund to support patriotic games became known last April. Then it was reported that the money would be allocated to developers whose games popularize Russian history and culture.
Also in early February, the Public Chamber of Russia proposed to oblige large gaming stores to comply with the law on “landing”. In this case, companies responsible for sites like Steam will have to open Russian branches.