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.

I don't think YouTube or Google is collecting tax just for fun or to punish their content creators.

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.

First there's a ~20% VAT on it. $4 left. Twitch takes half of that - $2. The US takes another 0-24% from it. The local taxman takes another ~40%. You're roughly left with ~$1.

Kind of depressing when you look at it like that.

However America taxes world wide income, so it may be different in your country. You should probably ask a tax or accounting expert.

Any time the US does something, the reaction is always strangely different than when other players like the EU do the same thing...

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.

This is inherent in being the most powerful country in the world. The US has the ability to do it, so why wouldn't they? You're not a US citizen, so the federal government cares even less about abstract fairness than they usually do.

Pretty sure being a bully is supposed to be bad. ;)

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.

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-...

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.

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?

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).

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.

From my previous comment:

>(presumably the tax treaty also contains provisions for your country to net out the difference with the US).

either that or both countries figured that it mostly cancels out so they don't bother netting it out.

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.

"C. Which Form to File: Nonresident aliens who are required to file an income tax return must use Form 1040-NR, U.S. Nonresident Alien Income Tax Return"

https://www.irs.gov/forms-pubs/about-form-1040-nr

NOT YOUR LAWYER. Just providing links to a government website that explains what that government requires of people who earn US income.

Things like "Add lines 25a through 25c". Don't they have computers? Are the forms for Citizens like this too?

https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employe...

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...

Obligatory: not an accountant/lawyer

I’m sure there are clauses to avoid abusing gift tax as a loop hole for providing a service.

How come they’re implementing this suddenly? They didn’t respect laws for years? It has nothing to do with the law.

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.