Authors who are not from the U.S. are often caught in a quandary when it comes to taxation issues when it comes to downloading their books to be published and sold through aggregating sites such as Amazon. Many newly published authors in particular seem to get caught in the double taxation system, first by the 30% taken off their royalties by the site they’re published on, and then again at tax time.
There have been several articles written on these issues to help out authors on these issues. In fact, here’s one written by Diane Tibert for Canadian authors. But since that article, things have become somewhat easier in regards to avoid having to obtain an EIN from the IRS by being permitted now to use our social insurance numbers.
I recently came across this article from Joel Friedlander’s newsletter, the bookdesigner.com ,full of interesting and useful articles for Indie authors, and one written by Carla King for bookworks.com . It simplifies and explains the process for avoiding the dreaded 30% tax taken off royalties.
How to obtain free EIN #, EIN’s for authors, Free EIN’s for self-publishing authors, EIN’s for indie authors
Source: A Free EIN Simplifies the Business of Self-Publishing – BookWorks
D.G. Kaye ©October 2015
DGKayewriter.com 
It’s almost enough to make me glad I only have one book out there. Thanks for the info, Debby. Huge hugs.
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Lol Teagan. Don’t let this legal mumble jumble hinder your writing! And be grateful you’re already American. 🙂
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30%!!! Holy cow!
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No kidding!
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Ouch. Thirty percent. Thanks so much, Debbie.
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You’re welcome Tess. An important lesson here for us Canadian self publishers in particular. 🙂
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Knowledge is power. 🙂
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That’s a fact! 🙂
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great to know you are on top of these issues Deb.. and thankfully my own book is mostly still in my head! 🙂 Maybe one day 🙂
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Well Sue, just think, when you decide to put the book together, you can come here to answer some of your questions! 🙂 xo
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🙂 you will be the first I would come to 🙂
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I would be honoured! 🙂
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This was one of the first things I tackled as soon as I’d decided to self publish – no way was I going to lose 30% of my meagre income!
With guidance from some of the articles you’ve quoted, it wasn’t hard to get the EIN, it was just annoying having to make an International phone call to get it finalised.
At least you only have to do it once, not annually 😀
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Yes, amen to that Deb. We who have the EIN’s know what a process it was to go through. But now when Amazon asks you to update your tax information, or for new authors publishing, all they require is our social insurance number. Now it’s so easy! I don’t know what the equivalent number is there in the U.K.? 🙂
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That would be our National Insurance number. How much simpler is that? LUCky newbies.
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LOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL 🙂
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