W-8BEN tax form

[safisufie]

Hi,

I am a beginning affiliate marketer from Singapore. My concerns are:

1) Is it necessary to send back the W-8BEN tax form?
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2) According to Allan Gardyne (founder of AssociatePrograms.com), "All you need to give is your name and address.
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3) According to an affiliate marketer from Mexico:
"The W8BEN form is only required to be filled out for US SOURCED income. Now "US Sourced" doesn't mean where the person writing the check is, it means where the work was done by the PAYEE.

FOREIGN SOURCED income is NOT subject to tax in the USA and does NOT require form W8BEN to be filled out - W8BEN is for foreigners to claim exemption from withholding tax on US SOURCED INCOME for tax treaty obligations.

The instructions for W8BEN are clear:
"Who must file. You must give Form W-8BEN to the withholding agent or payer if you are a foreign person and you are the beneficial owner of an amount SUBJECT TO WITHHOLDING."

As I said previously, FOREIGN SOURCED INCOME IS NOT SUBJECT TO WITHHOLDING.

All that is required is that the foreign affiliate CERTIFIES they do not have any US-SOURCED income and are not a US Taxpayer, etc.

Google has it SPOT ON, on their Adsense tax information page: https://www.google.com/adsense/taxinfo

These info are extracted from
http://www.associateprograms.com/discus/ftopic10707.html
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I really apologise for the long post, but I do hope that someone will be able to help.

Thanks in advance.

[Jim Hutchinson]

The thing about taxes is they make it too complicated with their
instructions. Basically the way I see it, if the products you promote,
or services are performed within the USA, then tax is due.

USA residents must file a W-9 and non-US residents must file a W-8.
At the year end, a 1099 will be sent to you and must be reported
only if you earn more than the minimum allow by the US tax law
within the previous year. To my knowledge, that is currently $500.

I hope that makes more sense.