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This RT article is clickbait and spreading misinformation. The tax is on revenue generated from users in the US, not on all revenue. If creators provide no tax

This RT article is clickbait and spreading misinformation. The tax is on revenue generated from users in the US, not on all revenue. If creators provide no tax information at all, only then will YouTube tax all global revenue. And YouTube is not doing so by choice, they're a US headquartered company and forced to do this to comply with US tax law. RT is highlighting tweets that are spreading misinformation. For example: > I'm so confused, @YouTube and @AdSense are updating their terms so that all Non-U.S. Creators now have to pay American Taxes on all of their earnings. No, it's on US sourced income. RT clearly knows this tweet is untrue, in the third paragraph they explain this is only on US sourced revenue, yet they still promote it. Another one: > It seems that even if you live outside of the US, and are not a US citizen and therefore owe the IRS no taxes No, it's US sourced income, therefore the US government can levy taxes on it. Another one: > You are really giving a huge middle finger to creators who now have to pay DOUBLE TAX. No, they are only double taxed if the country they reside in does not have a double taxation agreement with the US. More than 60 countries have a double taxation agreement with the US. I believe the majority of creators will not double taxed. The title and contents are chosen to promote maximum outrage. Even a cursory reading of the original source https://support.google.com/youtube/thread/101463270 https://support.google.com/youtube/thread/101463270 dispels these claims. This article should be replaced by the original source.

sandworm101 6y ago
"we will soon be updating our Terms of Service where your earnings from YouTube will be considered royalties from a U.S. tax perspective (we’ve already made this change to the Terms of Service for U.S. creators in November). This may impact the way your earnings are taxed, and as required by U.S. law, Google will withhold taxes." So you will have to file a tax return and get the money back just like every other income earner in the country. The real issue imho is that the bulk of youtubers probably aren't properly filing any returns in any country. I have a young guy working for me who does game streaming on weekends. I think he earned a few thousand dollars last year. He had no idea that such income was taxable, that he would actually have to hand over part of it to the government despite it not coming from his fulltime job. I think he would prefer google withhold those dollars.
- sempron64 6y ago
  I am not a tax expert, and I’m speaking from a U.S. perspective, but if the earnings are via stream donations (not ads), would that not be considered a small gift and not be taxable?
  - sandworm101 6y ago
    Tax law 101: You cannot turn a transaction for a product into a pair of "gifts" between the parties. Where both parties are subject to contracts for services or payments, there are no gifts. Similarly, all "gifts" from employers to employees are considered non-gift income. A car given to an employee as a "gift" is income to the employee and a taxable deduction by the employer. See Duesenberg (I'm trying to find the citation. I only remember that it involved an expensive car given to a senior employee in the early years of US income tax.) And there is an Andy Griffith Show episode about this, about Aunt May having to pay income tax on prizes. The tax man was played by the guy who played the priest on MASH. "While in Hollywood, Aunt Bee wins several new appliances on a TV quiz show, but when she returns home she loses her friends as a result. William Christopher plays the IRS agent who visits the Taylors to collect taxes on the prizes." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_Andy_Griffith_Show_episodes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_Andy_Griffith_Show...
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - kevinventullo 6y ago
      Stream donations aren’t really a transaction, though. The streamer is under no obligation to even respond to a donor, and certainly there is no employer/employee relationship.
      - sandworm101 6y ago
        Is the streamer a listed/registered charity? If not, then donations are presumed to be taxable income.
mc32 6y ago
That is a lot more reasonable. I can see other countries wanting taxes on revenue generated by their viewership as well and that would make sense too.
bin_bash 6y ago
slightly OT but does anyone recommend journalism from organizations that avoid this sort of misleading information? I'm not sure if I've just become more sensitive to it but recently I feel like I can't get away from it. WSJ (non-opinion) seems to be one of the few places that tends to have accurate headlines IMO.
- sandworm101 6y ago
  https://BBC.co.uk/news https://BBC.co.uk/news I wouldn't say that they are totally unbiased, but the BBC is the most respected international news organization on the planet today. The are definitely pro-western democracy, as opposed to RT, but if the BBC broadcasts outright lies there are open processes to force corrections. The BBC has oversight whereas RT is a closed box that can do as they please.
  - thu2111 6y ago
    It really isn't. The BBC publishes wrong or hopelessly biased stories all the time, which is why the majority of the British population no longer trusts them. As for processes to get corrections, as with many firms the best way to get their stories fixed is being it to the attention of blogs read by the ruling party e.g. Fawkes. Using their actual complaints procedure rarely seems to work.
- drzaiusapelord 6y ago
  RT is Russian state media, thus its propagandist, its not a real news outlet. There is no "journalism" tradition there in terms of ethics, trust, standards, etc. It follows the party line and the Kremlin's needs, which currently are to make the US/West look as bad as possible.
  - bin_bash 6y ago
    not defending RT, but I've been seeing it in NYT, Verge, Bloomberg too. That's more what prompted my question.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
drzaiusapelord 6y ago
Yep this. RT is a dishonest propaganda outlet.
sudosysgen 6y ago
Sorry, but this is still insane. It makes absolutely no sense that a non-American has to pay up to 24% tax on money from American viewership, and then again pay income tax. As far as I know, there is no other countries in the world with such an insane policy. Being subject to taxes from a country you don't belong to exactly as if you lived there (these aren't sales taxes), is completely unreasonable. Remember, this is on top of existing sales taxes, what it really is is the US trying to double-tax non-US citizens on their income. The title is reasonable.
- D13Fd 6y ago
  I have zero love for YouTube or Google, but any ire here should be directed at U.S. law, not at them. They have no option but to comply with the law -- whether that means applying taxes to revenue from U.S. sources, or cutting off non-U.S. creators from revenue or views from U.S. sources. I don't think YouTube or Google is collecting tax just for fun or to punish their content creators.
  - sudosysgen 6y ago
    I agree, this is mostly an issue from the US Government. That being said, Google has subsidiaries that cover every region of the world, if they wanted to do so they could put creator services under the dominion of those regional subsidiaries, then structuring the transfer payements to equalize the inflow/outflow as IP payments, as they do already for other services.
- jgowdy 6y ago
  How is this not exactly the same as the EU putting targeted taxes on major US technology companies to stop money from leaving their market? Any time the US does something, the reaction is always strangely different than when other players like the EU do the same thing...
  - martin8412 6y ago
    This is literally not even the remotely same thing.. The EU wants to tax companies earning money in the EU.. The US wants to tax people/companies in every other country around the world. The US is one of those few countries with insane tax legislation. As a US citizen, you won't have a good time moving anywhere, because almost nobody wants to deal with US citizens because of the batshit crazy tax laws.
OJFord 6y ago
It's arguably not US sourced income by virtue of US viewers though. If US people visit the UK, our shops don't charge and pay sales tax in the US. Really it should be about where the server is I suppose, regardless of whether the viewer is American or not. The internet is interesting and messy and laws & regulation are far from caught up.
- ctroein89 6y ago
  The better analogy here is that if a German band plays a concert in the UK, they still need to pay UK taxes on their ticket sales. Even if the band is incorporated in Germany, the portion of the tour that occurred in the UK is still subject to UK taxes. Additionally, most European countries permit duty-free sales to foreign citizens in normal stores under the right conditions (often via requiring a passport to be shown at purchase, and via refunding the taxes at airport when leaving the country). This arrangement works because, it's generally required that travelers pay customs on arrival to their home countries on goods purchased abroad anyway. That being said, I've just learnt that the UK has killed their duty-free sales system as of 2021 [1], which is just stupid. [1] https://www.executivetraveller.com/news/uk-to-axe-duty-free-sales-vat-refund https://www.executivetraveller.com/news/uk-to-axe-duty-free-...
  - OJFord 6y ago
    Sure, but likewise that's because they're in the UK. It's not so clear that the sale or performance is in the US if it happens online. If a band live streams a concert from a server in the UK and someone in America watches, ... I don't think it's so clear.
donmcronald 6y ago
> No, it's US sourced income, therefore the US government can levy taxes on it. Is it more accurate to say US sourced net income? It's amazing how massive companies can put their HQ in a tax haven and avoid US taxes completely while small creators are going to have withholdings from their revenue (ie: max taxes with zero expenses until they file a return to show net income, right?). It's a terrible deal for Canadians who will be paying US taxes without living in the US. Will they be eligible for US social programs, etc.? Why should the first 15% (IIRC) of income taxes from YouTubers go to the US? That's BS. If I were a creator I'd already be looking into setting up two companies. One would create and license content to the second. The second would have the relationship with YouTube and would only make a very small amount of profit. That's not advice. I don't have a clue how it actually works If it were YouTube on the hook for the taxes, you can be guaranteed there'd already be some corporate structure set up to avoid those taxes. Why can't there be a YouTube Canada that runs at a very thin (almost zero) margin by selling ad space for Canadian YouTube channels to YouTube US and paying out Canadian YouTubers with the revenue?
- gruez 6y ago
  >Is it more accurate to say US sourced net income? It's amazing how massive companies can put their HQ in a tax haven and avoid US taxes completely while small creators are going to have withholdings from their revenue. that's because corporations get taxed on profit, and individuals get taxed on income. profits can be rerouted to more tax-favorable jurisdictions, but it's much harder to pull off with personal income. >It's a terrible deal for Canadians who will be paying US taxes without living in the US. Will they be eligible for US social programs, etc.? Why should the first 15% (IIRC) of income taxes from YouTubers go to the US? That's BS. In the case of canada (and other countries with a tax treaty with the US), this is a non-issue because you either pay 0% withholding or can deduct the tax from your country's tax return (presumably the tax treaty also contains provisions for your country to net out the difference with the US).
  - donmcronald 6y ago
    > In the case of canada (and other countries with a tax treaty with the US), this is a non-issue because you either pay 0% withholding or can deduct the tax from your country's tax return (presumably the tax treaty also contains provisions for your country to net out the difference with the US). This is what Intuit says for that type of income: > If taxes were deducted from your income, you can claim those taxes as if you paid them to the CRA. Because you have a duty to report all your U.S. income on your Canadian return, the income is deemed taxable as Canadian income. The usually lower U.S. income tax rate could leave you with an amount owing for the difference between the United States and Canadian income tax rates. So, just for the sake of an example, say I make $100, US income taxes are 15%, and Canadian income taxes are 25%. The way I understand it, I pay $15 in US tax. That's calculated as if I paid it to the CRA, so now I only owe them $10 to make up the difference. The HUGE issue with that is that my country (Canada) only gets $10 for things like healthcare and social programs while the US gets $15 for doing exactly nothing. So it might not make a difference in terms of the money in my bank account, but it's detrimental to me in terms of a lack of funding for government services.
MrRiddle 6y ago
You went to great length to discredit RT but seems like they listed all the details. US double taxation laws are a joke, covering only 1/3 of the world. How come they’re implementing this suddenly? They didn’t respect laws for years? It has nothing to do with the law.

sandworm101 6y ago

"we will soon be updating our Terms of Service where your earnings from YouTube will be considered royalties from a U.S. tax perspective (we’ve already made this change to the Terms of Service for U.S. creators in November). This may impact the way your earnings are taxed, and as required by U.S. law, Google will withhold taxes." So you will have to file a tax return and get the money back just like every other income earner in the country. The real issue imho is that the bulk of youtubers probably aren't properly filing any returns in any country. I have a young guy working for me who does game streaming on weekends. I think he earned a few thousand dollars last year. He had no idea that such income was taxable, that he would actually have to hand over part of it to the government despite it not coming from his fulltime job. I think he would prefer google withhold those dollars.

sempron64 6y ago
I am not a tax expert, and I’m speaking from a U.S. perspective, but if the earnings are via stream donations (not ads), would that not be considered a small gift and not be taxable?
- sandworm101 6y ago
  Tax law 101: You cannot turn a transaction for a product into a pair of "gifts" between the parties. Where both parties are subject to contracts for services or payments, there are no gifts. Similarly, all "gifts" from employers to employees are considered non-gift income. A car given to an employee as a "gift" is income to the employee and a taxable deduction by the employer. See Duesenberg (I'm trying to find the citation. I only remember that it involved an expensive car given to a senior employee in the early years of US income tax.) And there is an Andy Griffith Show episode about this, about Aunt May having to pay income tax on prizes. The tax man was played by the guy who played the priest on MASH. "While in Hollywood, Aunt Bee wins several new appliances on a TV quiz show, but when she returns home she loses her friends as a result. William Christopher plays the IRS agent who visits the Taylors to collect taxes on the prizes." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_Andy_Griffith_Show_episodes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_Andy_Griffith_Show...
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - kevinventullo 6y ago
    Stream donations aren’t really a transaction, though. The streamer is under no obligation to even respond to a donor, and certainly there is no employer/employee relationship.
    - sandworm101 6y ago
      Is the streamer a listed/registered charity? If not, then donations are presumed to be taxable income.

mc32 6y ago

That is a lot more reasonable. I can see other countries wanting taxes on revenue generated by their viewership as well and that would make sense too.

bin_bash 6y ago

slightly OT but does anyone recommend journalism from organizations that avoid this sort of misleading information? I'm not sure if I've just become more sensitive to it but recently I feel like I can't get away from it. WSJ (non-opinion) seems to be one of the few places that tends to have accurate headlines IMO.

sandworm101 6y ago
https://BBC.co.uk/news https://BBC.co.uk/news I wouldn't say that they are totally unbiased, but the BBC is the most respected international news organization on the planet today. The are definitely pro-western democracy, as opposed to RT, but if the BBC broadcasts outright lies there are open processes to force corrections. The BBC has oversight whereas RT is a closed box that can do as they please.
- thu2111 6y ago
  It really isn't. The BBC publishes wrong or hopelessly biased stories all the time, which is why the majority of the British population no longer trusts them. As for processes to get corrections, as with many firms the best way to get their stories fixed is being it to the attention of blogs read by the ruling party e.g. Fawkes. Using their actual complaints procedure rarely seems to work.
drzaiusapelord 6y ago
RT is Russian state media, thus its propagandist, its not a real news outlet. There is no "journalism" tradition there in terms of ethics, trust, standards, etc. It follows the party line and the Kremlin's needs, which currently are to make the US/West look as bad as possible.
- bin_bash 6y ago
  not defending RT, but I've been seeing it in NYT, Verge, Bloomberg too. That's more what prompted my question.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

drzaiusapelord 6y ago

Yep this. RT is a dishonest propaganda outlet.

sudosysgen 6y ago

Sorry, but this is still insane. It makes absolutely no sense that a non-American has to pay up to 24% tax on money from American viewership, and then again pay income tax. As far as I know, there is no other countries in the world with such an insane policy. Being subject to taxes from a country you don't belong to exactly as if you lived there (these aren't sales taxes), is completely unreasonable. Remember, this is on top of existing sales taxes, what it really is is the US trying to double-tax non-US citizens on their income. The title is reasonable.

D13Fd 6y ago
I have zero love for YouTube or Google, but any ire here should be directed at U.S. law, not at them. They have no option but to comply with the law -- whether that means applying taxes to revenue from U.S. sources, or cutting off non-U.S. creators from revenue or views from U.S. sources. I don't think YouTube or Google is collecting tax just for fun or to punish their content creators.
- sudosysgen 6y ago
  I agree, this is mostly an issue from the US Government. That being said, Google has subsidiaries that cover every region of the world, if they wanted to do so they could put creator services under the dominion of those regional subsidiaries, then structuring the transfer payements to equalize the inflow/outflow as IP payments, as they do already for other services.
jgowdy 6y ago
How is this not exactly the same as the EU putting targeted taxes on major US technology companies to stop money from leaving their market? Any time the US does something, the reaction is always strangely different than when other players like the EU do the same thing...
- martin8412 6y ago
  This is literally not even the remotely same thing.. The EU wants to tax companies earning money in the EU.. The US wants to tax people/companies in every other country around the world. The US is one of those few countries with insane tax legislation. As a US citizen, you won't have a good time moving anywhere, because almost nobody wants to deal with US citizens because of the batshit crazy tax laws.

OJFord 6y ago

It's arguably not US sourced income by virtue of US viewers though. If US people visit the UK, our shops don't charge and pay sales tax in the US. Really it should be about where the server is I suppose, regardless of whether the viewer is American or not. The internet is interesting and messy and laws & regulation are far from caught up.

ctroein89 6y ago
The better analogy here is that if a German band plays a concert in the UK, they still need to pay UK taxes on their ticket sales. Even if the band is incorporated in Germany, the portion of the tour that occurred in the UK is still subject to UK taxes. Additionally, most European countries permit duty-free sales to foreign citizens in normal stores under the right conditions (often via requiring a passport to be shown at purchase, and via refunding the taxes at airport when leaving the country). This arrangement works because, it's generally required that travelers pay customs on arrival to their home countries on goods purchased abroad anyway. That being said, I've just learnt that the UK has killed their duty-free sales system as of 2021 [1], which is just stupid. [1] https://www.executivetraveller.com/news/uk-to-axe-duty-free-sales-vat-refund https://www.executivetraveller.com/news/uk-to-axe-duty-free-...
- OJFord 6y ago
  Sure, but likewise that's because they're in the UK. It's not so clear that the sale or performance is in the US if it happens online. If a band live streams a concert from a server in the UK and someone in America watches, ... I don't think it's so clear.

donmcronald 6y ago

> No, it's US sourced income, therefore the US government can levy taxes on it. Is it more accurate to say US sourced net income? It's amazing how massive companies can put their HQ in a tax haven and avoid US taxes completely while small creators are going to have withholdings from their revenue (ie: max taxes with zero expenses until they file a return to show net income, right?). It's a terrible deal for Canadians who will be paying US taxes without living in the US. Will they be eligible for US social programs, etc.? Why should the first 15% (IIRC) of income taxes from YouTubers go to the US? That's BS. If I were a creator I'd already be looking into setting up two companies. One would create and license content to the second. The second would have the relationship with YouTube and would only make a very small amount of profit. That's not advice. I don't have a clue how it actually works If it were YouTube on the hook for the taxes, you can be guaranteed there'd already be some corporate structure set up to avoid those taxes. Why can't there be a YouTube Canada that runs at a very thin (almost zero) margin by selling ad space for Canadian YouTube channels to YouTube US and paying out Canadian YouTubers with the revenue?

gruez 6y ago
>Is it more accurate to say US sourced net income? It's amazing how massive companies can put their HQ in a tax haven and avoid US taxes completely while small creators are going to have withholdings from their revenue. that's because corporations get taxed on profit, and individuals get taxed on income. profits can be rerouted to more tax-favorable jurisdictions, but it's much harder to pull off with personal income. >It's a terrible deal for Canadians who will be paying US taxes without living in the US. Will they be eligible for US social programs, etc.? Why should the first 15% (IIRC) of income taxes from YouTubers go to the US? That's BS. In the case of canada (and other countries with a tax treaty with the US), this is a non-issue because you either pay 0% withholding or can deduct the tax from your country's tax return (presumably the tax treaty also contains provisions for your country to net out the difference with the US).
- donmcronald 6y ago
  > In the case of canada (and other countries with a tax treaty with the US), this is a non-issue because you either pay 0% withholding or can deduct the tax from your country's tax return (presumably the tax treaty also contains provisions for your country to net out the difference with the US). This is what Intuit says for that type of income: > If taxes were deducted from your income, you can claim those taxes as if you paid them to the CRA. Because you have a duty to report all your U.S. income on your Canadian return, the income is deemed taxable as Canadian income. The usually lower U.S. income tax rate could leave you with an amount owing for the difference between the United States and Canadian income tax rates. So, just for the sake of an example, say I make $100, US income taxes are 15%, and Canadian income taxes are 25%. The way I understand it, I pay $15 in US tax. That's calculated as if I paid it to the CRA, so now I only owe them $10 to make up the difference. The HUGE issue with that is that my country (Canada) only gets $10 for things like healthcare and social programs while the US gets $15 for doing exactly nothing. So it might not make a difference in terms of the money in my bank account, but it's detrimental to me in terms of a lack of funding for government services.

MrRiddle 6y ago

You went to great length to discredit RT but seems like they listed all the details. US double taxation laws are a joke, covering only 1/3 of the world. How come they’re implementing this suddenly? They didn’t respect laws for years? It has nothing to do with the law.