W-8 form for foreign webmasters
 

Important Tax Information

We are in the process of updating our Taxpayer Identification Number and Certification records. In order to file an information return with the IRS, we must obtain your correct Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) to report income paid to you. Please ensure that you have a W-9 or W-8 form on file with us in order to ensure timely payment. Once signed, please mail or fax the completed form to:

Attn: Accounting Department
Various, Inc.
220 Humboldt Court
Sunnyvale, CA 94089
United States
Fax: 1(408) 744-9374

************************************************** ************


FACT: US sponsors are NOT required by law to get signed w8 forms from non-US webmasters.

So my question is, why the fuck are they requesting this ?

Did you get this message too ?

Correct.

Their accountant doesn't know what he's doing?

from time to time, yes

A withholding agent must withhold 30% of any payment of an amount subject to withholding made to a payee that is a foreign person unless it can associate the payment with documentation upon which it can rely to treat the payment as made to a beneficial owner that is: (1) a U.S. person, or (2) a foreign person entitled to a reduced rate of withholding (e.g., Form W-9,Form W-8, or other appropriate documentation).

Further comment from the IRS:

However, a withholding agent making a payment to a foreign person need not withhold if the foreign person assumes responsibility for withholding on the payment as a qualified intermediary, U.S. branch of a foreign person, a withholding foreign partnership, or an authorized foreign agent.

My accountant told me that we are required to send out W8 as well to all NON- American webmasters.

Document, document, document!

What you could do is show the accountent Google's definition of U.S. income -
https://www.google.com/adsense/taxinfo Google doesn't make foreign webmasters fill out W-8BEN forms.

W8BEN is only for US SOURCED INCOME.

That means "the work done was done in the USA".

If you did the work in another country, tax is payable in THAT country.

http://financial-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/W-8

Certificate of Foreign Status form required by the IRS to tell the payer, transfer agent, broker or other middleman that an employee is a nonresident alien or foreign entity that is not subject to U.S. tax reporting or backup withholding rules.

My mistake he did say that, but he did it a CPA lingo....so i didn't get it in the first place.

The W8BEN form is only required to be filled out for US SOURCED income. Now "US Sourced" doesn't mean where the person writing the check is, it means where the work was done by the PAYEE.

The OECD (of which the USA is a member of) put it's head together many years ago and determined that if you OWN a webserver in a country, then the websites you have on that server are producing income SOURCED in that country. If you merely RENT a webserver in a country, the websites on it are producing FOREIGN SOURCED income.

FOREIGN SOURCED income is NOT subject to tax in the USA and does NOT require form W8BEN to be filled out - W8BEN is for foreigners to claim exemption from withholding tax on US SOURCED INCOME for tax treaty obligations.

The instructions for W8BEN are clear:

"Who must file.

You must give Form W-8BEN to the withholding agent or payer if you are a foreign person and you are the beneficial owner of an amount SUBJECT TO WITHHOLDING."

Like i said, FOREIGN SOURCED INCOME IS NOT SUBJECT TO WITHHOLDING.

All that is required is that the foreign affiliate CERTIFIES they do not have any US-SOURCED income and are not a US Taxpayer, etc.

Google has it spot on, on their Adsense tax information page:

https://www.google.com/adsense/taxinfo

So all you need to do is add a little form to your site where non-US affiliates can click an "I'm not a US citizen and I do not have any US Activities"-button.

This thread is amusing. ;)

Various doesnt have very good tax folks.

Correct
On Other forums, google search W8 Forgein affiliates, you will find this topic many times

They aren't the only ones :/

Hi Fabien...:)

When a US sponsor asks me to fill out a W8 form, they don't get my traffic. I am not going to supply my personal information to the US IRS (especially because it is not even required by the IRS, these programs just don't even know the exact rules)

More than 11 years online here. No one ever asked me this !
Epass tried to pull this on me, guess what i did :321GFY

Also, guess who's the sponsor ?

Aff :1orglaugh

i know...i know...:Oh crap

Hi Odie by the way :winkwink:

Any original IRS document to prove your statement about 0% withholding?
 

Do you have an authoritative source to prove that? Google is pretty good, but the IRS website or an IRS form, or a US law would make me feel better and would make it easier to convince affiliate program bosses

again, any authoritative source, preferably an IRS website or form?


As I said, I believe in google, but an affiliate site rightfully can say they are not a tax authority.

Also is there an authoritative source that a simple declaration is good enough
(you might be a US citizen and might be cheating. Or you might own a web server but still be out of the reach of US law enforcement (living outside the US), so the affiliate site might get stuck with tax liabilities they can not recoup

Would it not be nice if the IRS had the required text written out somewhere so it can simply be copied?