The Mysterious ITunes One Percent Tax

The funny thing is I wouldn’t have bothered looking had the tax not been as small as it is! What tax is 1%?

A few days ago I bought two games for my iPhone. EA had a 99&#162 sale. I couldn’t resist.

Today the receipt came via email (which Gmail thought was spam and not really from Apple). Added to my $1.98 purchase was 2&#162 for tax.

The tax rate works out to 1%. Connecticut’s sales tax is 6%.

Apple has a physical presence in-state. There are a few Apple Stores. That normally means they must charge state sales tax.

There’s no explanation on the receipt beyond “tax.” Something is weird.

I entered “iTunes tax” into Google. A few other people have asked the same question I’m asking, but with no good answer. Some were in states with no sales tax!

From the search results it’s also obvious lots of states would like to tax iTunes purchases, but as far as I see don’t.

A search on the iTunes support page also produced no info.

The funny thing is I wouldn’t have bothered looking had the tax not been as small as it is! What tax is 1%?

Now this 2&#162 charge will drive me crazy!

9 thoughts on “The Mysterious ITunes One Percent Tax”

  1. Maybe you should bring this to the attention of Mr Blumenthal….if they are indeed charging tax to CT residents….I am sure he would like to collect it for his constitutes!

    1. Is this a state tax? I can’t find it (which proves nothing). If it is a state tax why is there no sales tax which should obviously be collected?

  2. Geoff-

    You are #1 #2 on Google and Bing for the search ct itunes 1% tax

    I saw this answer http://forums.macrumors.com/archive/index.php/t-682216.html on the net:

    “I’ve never been able to figure out a straight answer regarding the the iTunes tax situation. From what I’ve been able to piece together, they don’t charge regular sales tax per se. Some states implemented “download” taxes. For some states these equal sales taxes, but it seems for most it’s a lesser amount. In CT it’s 1% (our sales tax is 6%). In effect it’s basically an iTunes tax because in order to charge it the good must be sold as a download and the offerer has to have a point of presence in the state.”

    -dave

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