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Steam heated

Message from Steam about how they had to tax some guy

As you may recall, this past weekend was officially a tax-free weekend in Massachusetts. So Kilonum was surprised when he paid for and downloaded a game on the Steam game platform and got charged Massachusetts sales tax - surprised enough that he wrote the company. And the company wrote back with a list of products for which products still had to have tax levied on them.

Including, um, Steam.

As Capt. Picard might say:

Come on, Picard says

The state replies:


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Comments

As a steam user, this is really hilarious to me. It's very funny to see something like this on Uhub

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Amazing!

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I was thinking of buying a new steam radiator, a product in which one of the largest manufactures of new steam radiators is based in Ward Hill, MA. But they are closed on the weekend so no tax free sales where made.

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what type of stanley parable logic is this.
--mousemurder

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okay I saw the headline earlier on twitter but didnt read the link yet.

OMG LOLOLOL

They actually thought they were exempt because it says "Steam"

Wow.. should we guess that their legal department or customer service staff or finance department are under the age of 30?

I mean I think people forget that "steam" is actually a utility like Gas and Electric. And used to be provided as such all around Boston. I think MGH still gets steam from the Trigen plant on Cambridge Parkway.

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You know Seymour, this taxable steam is a lot like the tax-free steam they have in New Hampshire.

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thing I have ever read. It has everything. Ridiculous blue laws. A software company that can't handle edge cases on sales tax. An earnest-but-totally-out-of-their-depth customer service rep. Word play. The involvement of the IRS on Twitter. Financial implications of <$1. If it doesn't dominate the internet tomorrow, we've all done something terribly wrong.

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To all the fine comments already present, I have only to add: Here, here!

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A software company that can't handle edge cases on sales tax.

So, like every software company? Do you have any idea how hard it is to get sales tax right across the entire US (and world), even when you don't have to deal with random tax holidays?

The involvement of the IRS on Twitter.

It's Mass Department of Revenue, not the IRS.

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But you're not buying Steam.
Steam just happens to be the platform on which you buy other stuff. The exclusions, IIRC, apply to items, not specific stores or platforms.

So even that logic doesn't hold up.

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