A new bill proposed by the Australian federal government could make digital services like Netflix and Steam a lot more expensive for its citizens. The government is considering applying the goods and services tax (GST) to “intangible goods” like web service subscriptions and digital game downloads. The GST currently applies to physical imports priced higher than $1000 AUD, but the proposed change would apply the tax to lower cost digital goods and could increase their cost by up to 10 percent.

This is bad news for Australian gamers, who already pay inflated prices on games for a variety of reasons. Many gamers criticize the difference in price between games in Australia and the US because the goods are digital, and are therefore not affected by the costs involved with shipping physical products.

Some digital game services, such as GOG.com, have offered vouchers or free games in the past to make up for the higher cost,  Some more tech savvy gamers use VPN services to mask their origin so they can purchase games at lower foreign prices, but many others simply forgo buying the games entirely and choose to pirate them instead.

Last year, Australia’s Attorney General George Brandis claimed that Australia was “the worst offender of any country in the world when it comes to piracy.”

Australia would not be the only country to tax digital goods. The European Union now applies a value added tax (VAT) to digital goods at rates of up to 25 percent in some nations, which greatly increased the cost of game and other digital products.

One reason given for the proposed tax is to protect native Australian businesses from foreign competitors, but there is no service comparable to Steam in the country. Even the Australian game developer community has all but dried up, as the country’s last triple-A studio, 2k Australia, closed its doors last month.

While the cost of games would increase, Australians would have no cheaper local alternative to turn to. As a result, it seems unlikely that Australia’s internet piracy problems will be going away anytime soon, and they may even become worse.

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