I am starting thread in context of the recent taxation policy implemented by Envato. In essence, authors will now have to pay anywhere between 10% to as high as 30% of tax on US sales depending on whether or not you have submitted your forms W-8 or W-9 with tax ID number and the treaty between the author’s home country and US. This more or less affects all users in a huge way and puts a big dent in the final amount received. Apart from this, many authors ALSO pay an additional income tax in their own country every year. We are bound by the law and tax treaties. So I am petitioning Envato to increase the sale price of each item by at least 25% to make up for the loss in revenue incurred to the authors.
I would love to know the views of Envato authors. Thanks.
Agreed too, it is unfair if envato does not give some solution for authors, practically I am getting 25% of the item price from US buyers, seems a joke
I agree that the situation with the US tax department is painful. Not only is the 30 per cent withholding tax high, it is extremely difficult to get the 10 per cent level imposed. I have experience with this as my wife is a writer whose self-published books on Amazon are taxed at 30 per cent but at only 10 per cent for her US publisher published other works. We tried using the US-Australia tax treaty arrangement for her self-pub items but the IRS systems would not approve it so she spent 2 hours on the phone to the IRS to obtain a tax file number called an EIN. But even with that we have struggled for weeks so far with no success to use it for her Amazon sales because the IRS keeps rejecting their own EIN with claims the supporting documentation (addresses, etc) does not match their stored data to the last dot and space.
Having made that point, this and the issues you raise are only what other types of authors, writers, resellers, etc. have been facing for years, including the double dipping by both US and domestic tax authorities.
A more critical issue is perhaps price point, however. Do you not think Envato customers might react negatively to a 25% price hike? I recently purchased a USD$59.00 theme. - that’s AUD$84.50. The increase you propose would make that theme around AUD$105.00. There always comes a breaking point in the tension between what a creator would like to be paid and what the purchaser is willing to pay.
I realise you were looking for the thoughts of authors on this but if you don’t also consider the customer in the equation, you could risk losing more than you gain.
lol, you must be new to envato, there isn’t a thing called petition around nor you can merely change a thing as a community (no matter how much they claim to be “We are community driven and we do listen”). These guys tore down a whole forum site just to make topics smaller fonted so no one can hear anybodies voice
hi, i personally agree with anything that u are saying, however, i think that this system has no way back and that’s why i have been raising against all of them before they came into effect but there weren’t enough people trying to do just that so that we have a chance not to have to deal with all this. Besides, let’s face it , unless what happens with some authors, this place is based on quantity (or volume if u wish) and if u increase the price whether this is your side or in envato’s side, this basically means that your volume of sale will decrease and it will probably somehow someway amount to the same. Basically, one way or another u lose with these new systems which are definitely not author oriented, because if u increase price, then u’ll get more tax too, so basically u ‘ll increase much, decrease the buyer base and pay more taxes as this is proportional to the price and the money that u get anyway , so i don’t think thats’ really a way out for authors. Indeed, i think that we are bound to work much and get small money in return, the thing is that the money will get lower and lower as new things like this appear on regular basis as of late … that mane a stroke also on the global quality as some good designers will choose to go away because they really do not make money enough anymore this way …
yes this is true that our voices are far from being listened to and that the consideration that we are receiving has decreased, we are more and more imposed thing and cannot do anything about it when we are directly impacted. as for what was said as regard to the community thing, just as mentioned several times already, we, authors, make it happen, we should not expect anyone else to make it come true but ourselves, thinking any other way is just having a beautiful dream
Yes. Definitely!
This thing with the additional US tax is totally discouraging and demotivating. The other day I had sale from US and, as the exclusive author, I earned $ 4.95!
US Royalty Withholding Tax was $ 4.56.
I agree,item prices must go up,i don’t feel motivated about uploading new stuff otherwise
Also,since i am non exclusive author,on some other markets i can choose my own prices and i sell my music for 40$ pretty regularly.
19$ for standard license is waaayy too low especially considering this new tax thing,i get 2.54$ for a full length music track,that is just humiliating.
