Envato Market Sales Tax Update

As the world goes more digital, many tax jurisdictions are updating their collection and reporting requirements for those who operate in the digital economy.

Sales taxes are imposed on the recipient of goods and services, but are usually required to be collected by the seller. More recently, tax regulators are shifting the responsibility to collect the sales tax to marketplaces like Envato Market.

What does this mean for authors?

As mentioned above, some jurisdictions require that Envato collect sales tax on behalf of authors from customers. We are currently collecting and reporting for Australian Goods and Services Tax, EU Value Added Tax, and more recently, have been rolling out the collection and reporting of US Sales Tax. As other jurisdictions pass similar laws, we’ll progressively implement them.

We’ll be updating our Author Help Center articles to let you know of these changes as they occur. However, it remains your responsibility to find out about your sales tax requirements, and we recommend that you continue to seek your own tax advice in respect of your obligations.

Each jurisdiction has its own unique requirements for collecting, reporting and remitting. Please refer to our Author Help Center for links to the specific tax authority website for more information.

What does this mean for customers?

Customers in relevant jurisdictions will be required to pay sales tax on applicable purchases. The sales tax amount will be calculated and itemised in the cart at checkout.

Next Steps

There’s no action required by authors at this time, Envato will automatically integrate any newly added sales taxes to the existing reports available in your author dashboard. We’ll be around for the next seven days responding to your questions. Please remember our Community Guidelines as you post.

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I don’t understand why this announcement now? Envato has been collecting VAT for years. What is different now, that would warrant an official announcement?

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Do you know which are the next jurisdictions that require Envato to collect sales tax?

Look at this list


, it is not just the EU that levies sales taxes on electronic services. Some countries introduced it last year, others a few years ago. It is very likely that some of these countries will ask Envato to collect these sales taxes in the future.

So you telling us to expect taxes from EU countries too as we pay for US now?

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Will there be any changes in EU VAT - EU Moss - Envato collecting system? I’ve heard that EU made an update of EU Moss procedure recently.

As far as I can tell, no, so the US tax is because Envato is based (legally) there so anyone who earns from them has to pay US tax although some countries have treaties which makes the tax amount 0.

These updates won’t affect that but will be for buyers in certain countries having to pay VAT taxes on their purchases (such as EU Moss), the US just changed laws around states collecting taxes from purchases in other states so the update could be too that, e.g. previously someone in New York wouldn’t have paid sales tax online, now they are liable to 21% (I think) which the seller (Envato) is liable to collect.

In short, countries are changing their tax laws so companies like Amazon don’t get away with “cheaper pricing” as the buyers wouldn’t need to pay taxes on their purchase.

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yeah basically this is the precarious ones who have trouble to live out of their activity that will be impacted, once again and have to absorb the impact, as usual! sick of all this. what about all this being taken from those who get a whole lot of money , like envato, like the big companies?! fees in envato are super huge plus we very often have the choice between contracting pest or cholera , that is to say between being accepting exclusivity and a bit better money or making almost no money at all from sales and sell somewhere else too! the people whi create in the end , they end up with crumbs!

We’re at a point now where other jurisdictions are passing laws more rapidly. Rather than making an announcement each time we begin charging a new set of customers, we’re letting you know that these changes will be ongoing and you’ll will see that reflected in the Author Help Center and downloads.

We do not apply taxes to authors for sales tax, these are applied to customers based on their location. As a customer can only be located at one place, only one type of sales tax will apply (e.g. EU VAT for EU customers, AU GST for Australia customers).

Yep.

No. These are not taxes that authors pay. These are taxes that customers pay. More jurisdictions are changing their rules to ensure that those located in their area of responsibility are paying their taxes. Envato is obligated to different levels of reporting, collection and remittance.

Thanks all for your questions and comments. This wraps up our active monitoring of this thread. If you have further questions, please reach out to us by submitting a ticket.

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