gst - CANADIAN affiliates doing more than $35k business a year?
 

Just wondering how you guys that are doing over $35k a year are handling gst?

Technically, shouldn't we be charging gst to our sponsors?

Or are we able to get out of doing that based on the technicality that our business is involving sales of "products" out of the country? Would using a Canadian host or servers cause problems with that idea?

Have any of you gone through the potentially disastrous GST audit?

I'm a little worried about the idea that they may come back after the fact and demand 6% of all gross sales to cover gst.

I was told that if my sponsors were out of Canada, then no gst is charged but I still had to get a gst number and file a 0 return if thats the case. But if any sponsors are Canadian then you gotta pay gst on that.

thanks for that, that makes it easy....

I was just thinking that domains that I sell would need to be charged gst on if sold to a Canadian, but I wonder if it would not need to be charged if both Canadians go through an American escrow or domain reseller service?

I wonder how Adsense might fit in to the concept as well, being that Google operates a google.ca, would google count as a Canadian or American sponsor?

Its my understanding that if you sell to a canadian then yes you would have to charge or pay the gst owed on that as well.

Best to talk to them or an accountant to clarify. But from my understanding any business I do with Canadians requires me to charge GST and remit payment of it. whether that is selling domains to a canadian, doing design work for a Canadian or selling memberships to a canadian company. Though that last part was a bit confusing for me.

My understanding is quite different. While I have a GST number and file a 0 return, I receive nothing more than commission cheques and don't have to charge anyone any GST, because I don't charge anyone anything. The problem with the GST is if you phone and inquire you'll get different answers from almost everyone...at least you would 2-3 years ago.

The sponsor is charging the end user however and must charge GST UNLESS they can prove the purchaser is not a Canadian resident...and IP addresses don't suffice alone.

Yes thats the part I was a bit unclear about as the I have spoke to three people there and gotten varied answers on it each time. And my accountant said he wasn't sure either. My argument was exactly yours though.

Guys instead of guessing,use a proper canadian accounts firm,if you need one that has no problem dealing with adult etc,let me know and I will give you the details.

They will be happy to give you advice and it will not cost you a fortune,do it PROPER,and avoid the tears later!


Hope that helps :thumbsup

The seriously fucked up part is there is a larger Canadian program (who I won't name) who DID go through the audit a few years ago and had to pay (my understanding at least) a LARGE chunk of change even though they were given contradicting advice by GST employees. They had to pay GST (again, my understanding) on ALL sales because they couldn't prove the purchases weren't made by Canadians. The government couldn't prove they WERE Canadians, but when it comes to tax dollars, the burden clearly falls on the taxpayer.

If you want to fuck the Canadian taxman, do it on your income because the GST people don't fuck around. :2 cents:

that is a good point

I have seen the same, an income tax audit is way less stress than a gst audit... they get really serious when it comes to tax witholdings they deem you as supposed to be collecting for them

lol yeah. Key phrase there, "Collecting for them".