Please tell me this is not a bad joke ( Fees and Taxes)

Hi there.

I from Venezuela, i don´t know all of this issues of fees and taxes

But for my first sale of the year its a very disapointment.

Its a bad joke my sale for $13.60 only I get 4,42$

My sale its only to pay taxes and fees to envato.

I very very disapointment.

Happy new year to all

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Did you fill the W8 form?

I’m not sure about Venezuela, but there could be a tax treaty between the US and your country.

Hi Purple.

Yes a fill w8 form but envato obliges me to pay higher taxes and fees.

I pay more taxes and fees than others in envato.

I very very disapointment.

Thanks for your comment

If you filled in a W8 without a valid tax ID, then you’ll get 30% withheld from all your US sales. That’s no higher than any one else who has done the same. If you fill out a W8 with a valid tax ID, then you’ll only get 10% withheld.

Hi space

I don´t have Tax ID because I am not a US citizen

I´m from Venezuela

Bye

I’m not a US citizen either, but I still have a Tax ID. That’s what the ‘foreign tax id’ section is for on the form. The US has tax treaties with a number of countries, Venezuela being one of them, where the withholding rate is reduced or eliminated entirely. With Venezuela, it’s 10%, so you’ll get 10% withheld rather than 30% if you enter your tax ID number.

Enter my Tax ID from my country?

You can enter your Government ID number too. Since I don’t have a tax ID, I did that and it got submitted. I don’t know if it worked yet, waiting to get a sale and see how much I earn. If someone is willing to buy my $3 banner ads, I will happily confirm in this thread if it works or not.

I can only assume that the US got a bit fed up with US dollars leaving their shores, so they decided to come up with a solution. If $10 goes to a US provider, they tax that and then they tax whatever the remaining money is spent on, say a pack of beers, and then the shop pays tax on those earnings, and then they spend whatever’s left on stock and they pay tax on that and the cash and carry pay tax on those earnings… so on and so forth… and then the IRS are rolling in it. If $10 goes to a non-US provider, they never see that money again.

Although, keep in mind that as your country has a tax treaty with the US, you should be able to show the document you’ll get at the end of 2016 (issued by Envato to show how much tax you’ve had withheld) to your tax people and, in theory, it can be offset against what you need to pay in your own country… so you won’t be paying twice. Double check that with your tax people though.

2 Likes

for a $7 flyer my earnings on that is $2.07. so , $7 becomes 6$ that becomes -$2.25 (fee’s) = $3.75 - $1.68 taxes. haha, so i get $ 2.07. this is nothing short of tax avoidance. .

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i earned about 12$ per mnth last year on average and you still want to tax me. laughable

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If my math is correct. exclusive authors, potentially are now not on 50% any more its under 25%.
paper it up anyway you want its a disgrace. most of us who do flyers are lucky to get 20 sales a year per item. work out your return per year / per item.

2 Likes

Yes, in the ‘foreign tax ID’ box.

Yeah, in the UK you have a Unique Tax Reference number and a National Insurance number. You only get the first one if you’re a tax payer, and you get the second one just for existing. Pretty much like a social security number in the US. I had a look around for which one to use and there was varying advice. Some people saying you could use the NI, some saying you couldn’t. I think a lot of UK authors have used their NI number without any problems.

I decided to go for the tax reference to be on the safe side… some countries might be fine with just some kind of ID number, but if there are different ID numbers then it’s probably best to go with one that’s more closely related to taxes.

Definitely, it seems reasonable.
I’m actually not complaining about this tax issue, the only issue is that some people are not in a tax treaty country so they’ll get 30% instead of 10% like the majority.
Here’s another way I see things: Envato takes 50% first if you are exclusive, but the more you sell the less they take. It’s just simple business. So the best case scenario is after you sell over $75,000, the most you lose is about 20-25% tops including this 10% US tax.
That’s good folks, don’t be so enraged towards Envato. You’ll make less money at the beginning but keep pushing it.

On the other hand, I think Envato should reconsider their comission barriers, such as lowering that $75,000. Another problem Envato has is reduced number of sales. Clients will always come and go, good authors that bring value will only stay if it’s worth to them.

1 Like
  1. How do we know if the ID is valid?
  2. I’m from Kosovo and it seems that US and Kos don’t have a tax treaty, so is there a way to DROP lower that damn 30% ?

Well I got 4.68 from an 18 $ sale

If there’s no tax treaty then there’s not that much point in entering your tax ID. It won’t reduce the rate that’s withheld unfortunately.

I did not get sale from US yet this month which is not normal but if I get sale and the tax is high than I will surely increase my items price

I thought that ‘those other options’ on the application would do the trick, oh well. Taking 4 out of 18 its a ripoff

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