Prices for paid apps will increase by 20% in the coming days.
This decision of the company is connected with the recently entered into force «tax on Facebook», which obliges foreign online services operating in Ukraine to pay VAT at a rate of 20%, reports the Chronicle.info with reference to Focus.
Prices for paid apps and in-app purchases in the App Store (excluding subscriptions with automatic renewal) in Ukraine will increase by 20% in the coming days. This reported on the Apple website.
«Just as these changes go into effect, section «Pricing & Availability» in «My Programs» will be updated. You can change the pricing of your apps and in-app purchases (including auto-renewing subscriptions) at any time in App Store Connect. If you offer a subscription, you can keep the old prices for existing subscribers», the message says.
Apple's decision is related to the recently enacted «tax on Facebook» or the «Google tax», which obliges foreign online services that operate in Ukraine (Netflix, Facebook, Steam, Apple, Amazon and others) to pay 20% VAT.
According to journalists, the price increase in the App Store will occur during January 13-14.
What kind of «tax on Facebook»?
Recall, according to Law No. 1525-IX, electronic services that non-resident companies (which do not have a permanent representative office in the country) supply to individuals on the territory of Ukraine are subject to VAT (20%). A similar law already exists in 83 countries around the world. The new rules came into effect in Ukraine on January 1, 2022.
The government promised that the adoption of the law would provide fair taxation conditions for national and international technology companies and bring additional revenue to the state budget.
Cost It should be noted that technology companies shifted the new tax onto the shoulders of users, the prices for which simply increased by 20%.
Thus, Amazon, eBay, Meta, Google and other companies reported an increase in the cost of services for residents of Ukraine back in December 2021.
The Google Payments team announced that Google «will begin to charge a 20% value-added tax (VAT) on digital services.
Adobe also sent letters to users with a warning that from January 11, they will begin to charge 20% of VAT from them. From January 3, 2022, Meta (formerly known as Facebook) also added 20% value-added tax (VAT) for the services of its social network Facebook in Ukraine.