Hi,l know it’s a bit early to start this thread.i wanted to know about tax related info regarding playstore platform.is it a yearly basis that programmer like me need to remit tax to various country?or google take care of everything?how many percentage is the tax to yearly earning.how should i go about paying the various government body?i am newbie to playstore environment,so,any advice is appreciated…best rdgs,tst
Hi,
I don‘t think Google can take care of your taxes, they can only give you a statement of what you‘ve earned via play store. The rest is your own problem, between you and your local tax authorities.
Thomas
May i know,what about other countries tax,am i responsible for it,?thanks in advance…
Because when i was a palm programmer，i receive a letter from “America government”,asking for tax payment…i didnt receive any amount from hangdango,do i simply ignore it.
Hi #computerhusty i guess you mean i just take care of tax in my own country,no need to care about other country authority tax …best rdgs,tst
You’ll need to contact an international tax accountant or lawyer in your home country to find out which jurisdictions you need to register and pay taxes in - no one on this forum will be able to give you a definitive answer for your case.
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At one point I had several apps and 1 book sold internationally through the app stores. Both google and apple required me to check which countries I wanted my products to be available in. From there I also had to accept their “tax agreements” with those countries.
When a user purchased something through the app store I would get a portion of that purchase ($00.60 of each dollar). Apple and Google would hold that until I met the minimum disbursement amount.
From there, I’d get substantially less than the $00.60 cents as Apple and Google would withhold some tax amount for the countries I sold in. I didn’t have to do anything else. My accountant told me that they were withholding the maximum tax amount but if I wanted to receive a refund on the over payment I would need to file tax returns in those countries. Frankly, filing the returns would have cost more than I would have gotten back (and I’m sure that’s how these countries intended it to work).
Neither google nor apple withheld taxes for my US sales since that was my country of origin. (How kind of them! LOL)
I received a lot of emails from various “countries” demanding I pay taxes and most never had an amount on them or the amount was some crazy high number (1000 times the revenue for that country) or I had zero sales in that country. After a little investigation, I decided they were all scams so I put all of them in the electronic trashcan.
Not knowing your situation, I can’t give you any advise and this certainly should not be taken as advise but that is what my experience is/was.
I’m a US tax lawyer. The explanation below is just meant as context, not as tax advice but it may be of some use to some of you.
Most countries have a “withholding tax” system for taxing income of nonresidents. This is usually a fixed rate on gross payments (30% in the US) reduced for payments to certain countries by treaty—the US has a very large treaty network. To get the treaty reduction (or exemption) you usually need to file paperwork showing you are entitled to the treaty benefits.
These taxes are called withholding taxes because the tax is collected by requiring the payor to pay the relevant government directly and reduce the amount paid to the earner of the income. The payor (or sometimes an intermediary) is usually referred to as the “withholding agent”.
In this case, it appears that Apple and Google act as withholding agent. I’ve never filled out the forms for either but it appears that they either do not provide for filing the relevant exemption/reduction information or they make it hard to do so. So they may use the maximum rate. At one time, Amazon did provide mechanisms for non-US authors to claim the benefits of a relevant treaty, but I haven’t read anything about Amazon’s practices in many years.
For the US (and most other countries I’ve dealt with), an annual tax return is due from any nonresident who earns any income in that country above a small threshold. In the US and some other countries the return requirement is waived if your income has been fully withheld against.
If you have been over-withheld, you can usually file a correct return with appropriate evidence of the right to the relevant treaty benefit, and get back the excess. The cost of hiring someone to prepare the return may make this impractical.
Again—this isn’t tax advice, just (I hope) useful context…
I am very gladful for each and everyone that reply to this post.initially,i thought that might be no one replying.i will read through this carefully many times.most gladful,tst
@slm - I’m always amazed at the bench strength of the AppStudio community. Thanks for contributing this!
Like I said, they make it hard to do so… and expensive! So unless you’re making tons of money, you end up leaving money on the table.