Writing for Amazon Kindle? Tackle the US Withholding Tax.

UPDATE

It may now be possible to use your UK HMRC Tax Reference Number to claim 0% Withholding Tax. I posted an update in 2015 here.

Practical tips for handling US Withholding Tax from the UK perspective

Links and rates were accurate at the time of writing, May 2013

If you’re a UK Amazon Kindle contributor then your royalties will be subjected to US Withholding tax (currently 30%), unless you apply for exemption under a US-UK tax treaty. Unfortunately, the US Internal Revenue Service criteria have tightened in recent years and you’ll face some stringent rules and bureaucracy if you want to deal with your tax affairs properly. I wanted to apply for exemption but found that some of the info. dotted around on the web was out of date, so I’ve summarised what I’ve learned, valid as at May 2013, after several days of surfing around US Gov’t websites and corresponding with the US Embassy in London. This isn’t a thorough analysis, nor was it written by a qualified tax advisor, but it should steer UK contributors with the basics of US tax.

Firstly, as a “non-resident alien” you need to file an IRS tax return once your US-based income exceeds the year’s personal exemption amount (the IRS equivalent of a personal allowance), so says the IRS website Taxation of Non-Resident Aliens.

• For 2013, the personal exemption amount is $3,900 so you don’t have to file an IRS tax return if you earned less than that. See Publication 501 for an introduction to filing tax returns.

As regards your earnings, you can (will!) automatically pay US Withholding tax on ALL royalties and you could opt to leave it at that, or (a lot trickier) you can pay 30% Withholding tax and file an annual IRS return (Form 1040NR  Tax Return for Non-Resident Aliens) and claw it back again. In other words, even if you earn less than the personal allowance, you’ll automatically pay 30% US Withholding tax on your royalties unless you apply for an exemption. Once you earn more than $3,900, you’re supposed to file an IRS return anyway: I don’t know what happens if you don’t file such a return. Maybe the MiB's come and take you away.

In order to be exempted from Withholding taxes and receive your full royalty, individuals should apply for an ITIN (Individual Taxpayer Identification Number) with the US Internal Revenue Service. You cannot do this if you have a US Social Security Number (SSN). If you are a limited company or employer, you could apply for an Employer’s Identification Number (EIN) instead of an ITIN. This isn’t discussed here but this link may help.

Basically ITINs are obtained from the IRS using Form W-7. Complete it following the notes in Instructions IW-7. When you get your ITIN a few weeks later, send a Form W8-BEN to Amazon Digital Services in Seattle to complete the process. An ITIN is not for life and you now have to repeat this process every five years. All sounds easy enough...  

Note about Photo IDs

As per the Instructions for Form W-7 (here), one way is to simply fill in the W-7 form and send it with original ID (note, a current passport is the only stand-alone ID accepted), and an Amazon covering letter (q.v.) to the IRS in Austin, Texas, USA. That means you’ll be without your ID for 6 weeks+. Hopefully it wouldn’t get lost along the way... 

However the W-7 Notes explain other ways of applying for an ITIN, and also list the other forms of ID that can be used to prove your foreign status. If you don’t want to mail your original passport with your Form W-7, then two pieces of ID are required, one of which must (still) be a valid photo ID issued by a UK government agency, or documents certified by the office that originally issued the documents. For most of us in the UK, that still means (a) an original passport anyway or (b) other ID document + photo driver’s licence is needed. There’s no such thing as a ‘certified copy’ issued by the UK Government agencies. As you hold the original already, the UK issuing authorities don’t certify duplicates of passports or driving licences. It appears that a birth certificate could be used for ID, but a UK Photo ID would still be needed. See these IRS notes for information about the ID needed when applying for an ITIN.

In practice it looks like sending an original passport is the easiest route. Contrary to what I’d read elsewhere I found that the US IRS will [now] only accept copies of photo ID documents if they are notarized by the US Consulate in London. That’s right: if you want to use a photocopy of your passport only, you’ll have to pay them a visit to get it certified. It’s free of charge.

For many routine purposes, ID documents can be certified by a UK Notary Public at your expense. To repeat, unfortunately these won’t be acceptable to the IRS. A service such as the Post Office Identity Document Checking Service won’t be acceptable either. As the IRS clearly states: they only accept US-Consulate notarised copies of photo ID, or [UK] Government Agency certified copies [= no such thing].

So unless you send either (a) your original passport to the USA or (b) a suitable photo ID + 2^nd item of ID to the USA, you’ll have to visit the US Embassy in London and get a copy of your photo ID notarised by them, which is indeed what they invited me to do.  

The address is:

Internal Revenue Service
United States Embassy London
24 Grosvenor Square
London
W1K 6AH

You can walk in, but read the times and security information on the US Embassy website here.

An Authorised Acceptance Agent can handle the form-filling for you, for a fee, but I learned that they are now undergoing forensic training in identifying ID documents. It’s not clear if they can submit a copy of your photo ID and let you keep the original. See http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/Acceptance-Agents--United-Kingdom

Obtaining an ITIN with Form W-7 for Exemption from US Withholding Tax

Let’s look at the Form W-7. To start the process, download the IRS Form W-7 from here and you must fetch the Instructions for W-7 (IW7) here. The PDF can be editted and saved/ printed directly in Adobe Reader, so type your answers into the W-7 and print off a hard copy. The basics that cover most ordinary applicants are below, which I found were acceptable to the US Consulate.

Reasons you are submitting Form W-7
[a - tick] Non resident alien required to get ITIN to claim tax treaty benefit
[h - tick] Other (see table in notes IW7) > type in Exception 1(d) ROYALTY INCOME (Why? See my note* below.)

Name 1a Type into the boxes your First / Middle/ Last name
Also fill 1b Name at birth, if different from 1a.

Fill 2 with your full mailing address, zip code and country.
Fill 3 with your non-US address if different from 2.

Fill 4  Date of birth (in US format mm/dd/yyyy), country/ county.

Tick 5 Male or Female.  Don’t overlook this box, it’s over on the right of the form!

Fill 6a  UNITED KINGDOM

Box 6d is tricky. You’ll probably have to tick 6d  Passport

Underneath, fill 
Issued by : UK   No: [your UK passport number]  Exp. Date [expiry date mm/dd/yyyy]

Box 6e tick No/ Do not know

Sign it,  Date it [month/ day/ year] 

Phone number best in International format + 44,  e.g. 01234 5678910  is  +44 1234 5678910

* Due to ticking box 1h claiming Exception 1d (per the Exception Tables in W-7 Notes, “Third Party Withholding on Passive Income”), remember to attach a duly completed Amazon ITIN supporting letter with your form.

According to IW-7 Notes you then either send it WITH ORIGINAL ID DOCUMENTS to the IRS in Austin, Texas (see notes in IW-7) or you must attend the US Consulate in London in person to have a US-certified copy of your passport made. The IRS will then complete the W-7 application and your ITIN will follow from the USA within ~ 60 days.

Don’t simply post your form and passport on spec. to the US Embassy in London and expect to receive an ITIN. They will RETURN it if it lacks an IRS-certified copy of your Photo ID, which you have to arrange in person. Alternatively you can send your W-7, full passport and Amazon letter to the IRS in Austin, Texas – if you want to risk it.

Nearly there!

When you finally get an ITIN, complete Form W8-BEN Certificate of Foreign Status of Beneficial Owner for United States Tax Withholding downloadable from here with Instructions from here. It is very straightforward and needs to be snail-mailed to Amazon Digital Services in Seattle, USA. Write your KDP Publisher Code somewhere in the top margin. More details are on the Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) site.

Hopefully these details will help you complete your application successfully. You'll have to repeat this every five years.

• As I said at the start, this isn’t a thorough analysis, nor was it written by a qualified tax advisor, but it should steer UK contributors with the basics of US tax. Unfortunately I cannot help with US tax advice but I welcome feedback or comments.

Useful Links

Amazon Tax information

https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/help?topicId=A1VDYJ32T5D3U4

Official Amazon covering letter required with W-7 under Exception 1(d)

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/G/01/opt/general/test/AmazonDigitalServices_ITIN_Letter._V163067125_.pdf

IRS website links

There is plenty of online information on the IRS website. It is comprehensive but quite turgid and US bureaucracy is as bad as anything you get in the EU. Here are the main IRS links that I found most useful, correct May 2013.

Publication 515  Withholding of Tax on Nonresident Aliens and Foreign Entities: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p515.pdf

http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/International-Taxpayers/Taxation-of-Nonresident-Aliens

http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/General-ITIN-Information

http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/Individual-Taxpayer-Identification-Number-%28ITIN%29

http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/2013-ITIN-Updated-Procedures-Frequently-Asked-Questions

http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/Revised-Application-Standards-for-ITINs

http://www.irs.gov/w7 Form W-7, and
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/iw7.pdf Instructions and notes for Form W-7

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040nr.pdf  Form 1040NR Tax Return for Non-resident aliens, and
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1040nr.pdf  Instructions for Form 1040NR

http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/Acceptance-Agents--United-Kingdom

http://london.usembassy.gov/irs/ London Embassy

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw8ben.pdf  Form W8-BEN Certificate of Foreign Status of Beneficial Owner for United States Tax Withholding, and

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/iw8ben.pdf Instructions for the W8-BEN.

Please report any broken links.

HD TV or not HD TV, that is the question...

At my local Tesco Electricals desk I got chatting to a chap who was cogitating their flatscreen TVs.  He’d just bought a Panasonic 50” (wow!) “1080p HD Ready” flat screen TV from somewhere, but was extremely hacked off because it doesn't receive Freeview HD television channels, he said. Ouch....

A week earlier I’d replaced our 10-year old Sony analogue TV, with a Samsung 40” Smart TV, described as "1080p HD Ready". But it receives Freeview HD channels and we like it so much that a week later we bought a 22” Samsung “HD Ready” for the kitchen. The smaller TV does not receive Freeview HD. Both came from Argos (good service*, great prices.)

The guy’s dissatisfaction was very understandable.  Many people got over the ‘digital switchover’ hump in 2012 by using a cheap set-top box (STB) in an older analogue telly as a stop-gap.  Now they’re swapping old analogue sets (I took two cathode-ray tube TVs to the tip - good riddance) with proper digital flat screen TVs, with HD, HDMI ports and maybe ethernet built in.

The problem is that the retail sector is playing fast and loose with the terminology of High Definition Television and I sense a lot of confusion still out there. Even I admit, as a techie savvie sort of guy, that I almost got caught out by some simple misunderstandings.

It’s high time that the retail sector got its act fully together: I sometimes wonder if the blind are leading the blind, and I cite as a prime example the current Argos Spring 2013 catalogue and its description of its TV sets.

Argos Spring 2013 Catalogue: can all Argos HD-ready TVs view Freeview HD? Answer, not directly, no.On HD Ready sets Argos says that “All our TVs are HD ready... this means you can enjoy high-definition pictures from HD sources such as Freeview HD, Freesat HD and Sky.”

This gives the layman the impression that you can watch High Definition [Freeview HD as a minimum] programs on every TV set supplied by Argos, but you can’t. You’ll generally be stuck with a Standard Definition picture. Only if you supply an ordinary HD-ready TV with an HD program (say, from a separate HD recorder or an HD set-top box), can you can enjoy an HD picture on such a set.

People usually know that satellite (Sky) is an extra cost but a Freeview tuner is built into all new sets. There is of course a critical omission in the Argos blurb: to watch Freeview HD your TV needs a Freeview HD Tuner, or, you need a separate recorder or STB with Freeview HD built in. It’s just wrong for Argos to imply that you can enjoy HD TV like that.  Without a Freeview HD tuner then the TV will show the picture in Standard Definition (like my smaller Samsung TV - the penny dropped later!). In fact that’s what most of Argos’s TVs  do. Freeview HD TV is supplied on a minority of sets only.

Over on the extreme right of their catalogue is the gotcha: “Watch out for our Freeview HD televisions that let you watch High Definition, subscription free.”

• Remember – if you want to see Freeview HD channels, then your HD-Ready TV must have a Freeview HD tuner built in, or, you must use a separate HD tuner, perhaps in an HD hard disk recorder.
• Freeview HD+ means it has two tuners, so you can watch/ record two programs at the same time.

 Watch for the Freeview HD logo on a TV set if you want to watch Freeview HD programs directly on it. Otherwise you'll see a vanilla Standard Definition image.

Check the Freeview FAQS and be careful to check the specs when looking for a new telly.

To quote the FAQ: "Remember that an HD ready logo on your TV doesn’t mean that you are already watching HD channels on Freeview. When you’re buying a box or TV, look out for the Freeview HD logo to ensure that you’re buying an approved Freeview product, so you’ll be able to access all the Freeview HD channels as well as the standard 50* Freeview channels."

I contacted the Freeview consortium and received the following comments from their press office:

“We would advise anyone looking to buy a Freeview HD TV to look out for the Freeview HD logo. Use of this logo requires a trademark licensing agreement which ensures that the product does, in fact, support the Freeview HD service.

“Whilst it is true that the majority of TVs in the market today have Freeview HD [sic] built in, it is important to look for this logo as a guarantee that no additional equipment is required. We work with retailers to ensure that store staff members are clear that ‘HD ready’ isn’t the same as ‘Freeview HD’.

“Freeview ensures that this distinction is clear in all of our marketing and in-store signage. We will continue to encourage retailers to do the same.”

* No sooner had I paid and sat down than the TV was waiting for me at the collection desk 30 seconds later. Remarkable!

Why I won’t boycott Amazon any day soon

A lot of sanctimonious twaddle is being voiced about Amazon’s perceived failure to ‘pay UK tax’.  Show me the tax bill that Amazon has not paid.  Some individuals complain that they themselves have to pay income tax, NI, Corporation Tax and the like (don’t we all?), so they expect Amazon to do the same to help pay for Britain’s schools ‘n hospitals and all that jazz.

Unfortunately some people who probably live on someone else’s payroll just don’t get the idea of ‘business’. If I ran a book store, I’d certainly have been very hacked off by Amazon, but if I had a grocery or fishmonger I’d feel the same about Tesco or Sainsburys. That’s just free market forces at play, pure and simple, with international businesses trading in Britain just as you’d expect. As consumers with freedom of choice, you pay your money and make your choice, and personally, I don’t need anyone’s help in doing precisely that.

Every time Amazon posts a Facebook entry, some ex-Amazon user follows up with some self-righteous, high-minded piffle.  They cite Starbucks (UK) as having ‘done the right thing’ by ‘paying some tax’.  Nope, Starbucks made a voluntary donation, which probably came out of their marketing budget petty cash.  My guess is that they figured it’s money well-spent to appease their typical touchy-feely clientele who have difficulty in dealing with the mature world of business or (worse) the concept of retained profits.

Since when is tax paid on a voluntary basis? All kinds of business from owner-managers right up to MNCs instinctively organise their affairs to minimise the level of tax they are forced to hand over for Governments to spend irresponsibly. Most discerning individuals do the just same with their savings accounts, school funds, pensions, ISAs and so on.

Personally, I cringe when confronted by those who’ve probably used Amazon for half of their young lives already and don’t understand the world of big business.  Amazon is exactly that, a successful multi-national business, not a welfare vehicle for impoverished Brits. It bet the ranch in the 1990s by building a new site in the USA and burning lots of cash at the same time. It is a success but it could easily have gone the other way and failed. (In the USA, success is of course celebrated, but many a Brit relishes the Schadenfreude of business failure over here, like it serves them right for having tried.)

Amazon has enriched customers’ lives in many ways, including Amazon Marketplace, which allows thousands of small independent traders to sell online – some small firms I know are doing a roaring trade and creating local jobs and paying taxes, all thanks to Amazon. Also I can download individual MP3s, or sell books from my collection using Amazon. I might only make a few pounds, but the service works extremely well and Amazon connects interested booksellers and buyers with each other and pays bang on time. I know my books will go to a good home, which is better than dumping books in a charity shop; the last one I visited told his colleague to ‘dump it in the back with all the other stuff.’

I could always order direct from Amazon.com instead, just like I used to in the 1990’s long before Amazon came to the UK and Germany (when, I can add, no-one had hardly heard of Amazon in the UK at the time). The only difference is that it’ll take a bit longer for my goods to arrive. Unlike any earnest halo-wearing boycotter, I believe in the free market and I can decide where to buy from for myself, thank you.

If you don’t like the idea of overseas companies doing business here, then change the law and see what happens.

Amazon's three new UK warehouses will create 2,000 jobs by 2014

Amazon creates 1,000 new jobs in Liverpool

Google has spent £1 billion on a new building near King’s Cross, London, which will consolidate their other UK operations. BBC News link.

Starbucks tax 'donation' angers critics (The Guardian)

Brits are so outraged by Amazon, they voted it TOP for shopping (Christmas 2012) (The Register)

Ministry of Defence wastes £6.6 billion (of taxpayer's money) on supplies it does not need (Daily Mail)

£5 billion of savings (of taxpayer's money)  possible in NHS (Daily Telegraph)

Check out your (credit) rating

Here's a useful article about UK credit reference agencies, and how you can now check your own credit file for free.

There's no need to subscribe to expensive services, as your credit file report is just a few mouse-clicks away.

You'd be surprised (or maybe horrified) at just how much personal financial data is available for banks and lenders to tap into. More in Consumer Stuff.

To catch a troll

Currently the term "troll" seems to have captured the imagination of the mass media, following some recent legal action being taken against Facebook to reveal the IDs of those behind a troll.

My article explains what a troll actually is. More in Web and Tech here

EEweb EotD

Heck I'm Engineer of the Day at eeweb! I nearly spilled my pint of Jubilee beer! Well thank you anyway!

Chinese domain name scams

Year of the Dog?  I've come across more Chinese scams that try to flog your business a bunch of next-to-useless domain names. Here's a recent example of what to look out for. Read more in Web & Tech...

Interview / Bio : Part 3

My Gas Sentinel of April 1980 was popular - you can download it and read my prototype notesI've posted Part 3 of my bio/ interview with reprints of more Everyday Electronics projects including Uniboards. Many of these simple designs would be do-able today with a little substitution here or there.

More details in Hobby Electronics where you can also catch up on previous parts.

Anti-virus and a KVM switch for Windows 98

This KVM from ATEN lets you run 2 PC's side by side with one keyboard, video and mouse. Changeover switch circled.I've been running Windows 8 for a while - as in "Windows 98" that is - it's an old Dell PC dedicated to my Quicken 98 accounts system. I used an Aten CS22U KVM switch to control it in tandem with my regular PC. My latest post explains the benefits of this KVM in a tricky situation (with both VGA and DVI video), as well as suggesting an old friend for anti-virus under Windows 98. More in Web and Tech

Site of the day on eeweb

I'm quite chuffed (and pleasantly surprised) to say that my site EPEMag.Net has been highlighted as Engineering Site of the Day on eeweb. Which is nice.

http://www.eeweb.com/websites/epemag.net