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In Chicago, PlayStation users now have a nine percent tax to look forward to.
If you’re a PlayStation gamer in the Chicago area, your wallet is going to be crying an extra few tears going forward. Why? Well, because of the city’s infamous nine percent “Amusement Tax.”
If you’re from Chicago, you’ll be familiar with the Amusement Tax. But if you’re not from the Illinois city, it’s basically a tax on Entertainment. So, video games, streaming services, theater performances, etc.
Like other companies, Sony Interactive Entertainment fought and didn’t comply with the tax for awhile, but going forward it will be. What this means is that PlayStation owners will be paying an additional nine percent tax on not only games, but PlayStation Plus, Music, Vue, and other Sony services.
According to USGamer, PlayStation users with billing addresses in the city of Chicago are already getting notifications about the Amusement Tax from Sony, which reveal it will be active starting November 14 this year.
As you may know, the tax didn’t always apply to services like Playstation, but after an expanded definition and 2015 clarification, it has.
If you’re an Xbox or Nintendo gamer in the Chicago area, you will have been paying this tax for awhile, as Sony was the longest to hold out of the hardware manufacturer trio. Other companies, such as Apple, continue to fight the rule, noting that it violates the Internet Tax Freedom Act, which was a 1998 law that prohibited state and local governments from collecting Internet-only taxes or dumping discriminatory taxes on any type of e-commerce.
A nine percent tax will mean that a brand-new AAA game will cost an extra $6-7 a pop, which may seem minimal, but that adds up. And when you consider just how expensive of a hobby gaming already is, it’s surely a bummer for Chicago gamers who now have to fork out a little bit more each time they want to enjoy one of their favorite new games. It’s especially a hard pill to swallow when you consider some PlayStation games in some states don’t have to worry about extra tax cost at all.
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