Patreon Sales Tax Coming July 1st

Hi everyone,

So because of some new laws in the US and in other countries, Patreon is going to start charging sales tax on parts of *some* patron's pledges starting July 1st. (This won't affect patrons based out of the EU since they are already being charged VAT.)

How much you are charged is going to depend on the laws from where you are based. It all seems pretty complicated, especially in the United States. In the US the tax rates range from 4-11%, so everyone will be charged a slightly different amount. Also, it looks like sales tax will be factored based on the rewards we are offering. So in addition to that sometimes only a portion of your pledge will be applicable to the sales tax. 

Here's a chart of states that are affected: 

Here is a list of countries that will be affected: 

Patreon rolled out a feature that lets me percentage out benefits by type so that I can hopefully reduce what sales tax people have to pay. (Not all benefits are taxed the same way! General support is not taxable in some places for example. Seriously, it's confusing!) Here's how we decided to break it down:

If you’re in a location where sales tax will be required, you should expect to receive an email from Patreon with more information about this very soon, but I wanted to make sure you were aware of these changes way ahead of July 1st when they go into effect. 

The laws requiring sales tax on digital services and goods were mostly targeted towards online retail and streaming sites, like Amazon and Spotify. Since Patreon is pretty different from those sites, it's able to tax less on pledges. IT ALSO SEEMS LIKE IF YOU SELECT NO REWARD AS YOUR TIER, YOU WILL BE EXEMPT FROM SALES TAX IN SOME PLACES. This might be a good option for people who don't really want extra benefits and want to avoid the extra expense.

If you want to know more, here's a support link from Patreon.  If you still have questions, the best place to get an answer is from Patreon’s customer support team, here. 

Thanks for the support,

Grace and Derek