Can Envato please reconsider paying US tax treaty from their own side, instead of authors?
Considering most sales come from US, for some of us whose county doesn’t have any agreement with US, we need to give up 30% of US earnings, which usually ends up 20% of overall earnings, is quite a lot and not easy to swallow.
If Envato were to pay the withholding tax for authors, then there would be quite a few instances where they wouldn’t only not make money on an authors sales… but they would be losing money, every time an item of theirs was sold.
Example…
$10 item.
$7 to the Elite Author.
$3 to Envato.
Author pays $2.40 in withholding tax. Adjusted income: $4.40
Envato pays $1.20 in corporation tax*. Adjusted income: $1.80
If Envato pays withholding tax for the author, as well as their own taxes, their earnings would be: $-0.60
So if you ignore whatever the regular costs are for handling sales, payments, hosting and reviewing items etc… Envato would lose 60 cents every time that individual gets a sale. That’s worse than ‘not easy to swallow’. Unfortunately, you can’t swap and change taxes between people… If they started paying author’s withholding tax, then that doesn’t mean they’d get a free pass when it comes to their obligation to pay corporation tax.
*Not sure the rate Envato pay as I’m not sure if they’re paying US corporation tax or AUS corporation tax, or a combination of the both… but have based the rate on the 40% rate in Utah where they seem to be operating.
I am pretty sure Envato can adjust their math perfectly well to handle your calculations, like they have adjusted for vat and everything else. People here whine about ADP, I guess all those should start paying 30% us tax.
I’m not an author so don’t have the experience to comment on fees etc. but just for clarity - the US tax is applicable to the vendor (like income tax etc.) - that is the author and not envato hence why they could not pay it if they wanted to.
Off topic: Is it possible to clame withhold money if my country doasnt have treaty with US? Thanks!
No - if your country doesn’t have a treaty then, unfortunately, you pay the full amount
Thanks for your answer. I hoped if I get ITIN number that I will be able to return something from what they withheld.
I’m not a tax expert but am 95% sure that if the relevant info was not submitted at the time of sale then there’s no way to retro-apply this
I can`t find anywhere official note about it so I will keep digging cause you gave me 5% hope 
Cheers
You could try taxinfo@envato.com
Thanks! I will.