I've got those reverse double taxation treaty paperwork blues ...
Charlie Stross
pay tax on the royalties", right?
That's true. But there's a difference between paying tax -- and paying
tax twice.
SINGULARITY SKY (the first novel) has been a success: enough that
translations into German, Spanish, and Czech are in the works, with
several other languages pending. If you sell world rights to a novel,
your publisher sub-licences the rights to overseas publishers and
handles the money side of things for you -- you just pocket the
royalties, minus the publisher's cut. In effect, they act as an agent
for you. You can in principle make more money if you don't do that -- if
you sell the separate rights yourself, or through your agent. That's
what's happening with SINGULARITY SKY. But it raises all sorts of extra
headaches.
Headache #1 is income tax. Virtually every country has it, and they
generally don't like to see people evade it. In many countries,
publishers have to withhold a substantial chunk of royalties (sometimes
up to 50%) to cover the income tax bill, unless the author supplies
documentary proof that tax will be paid.
But obviously, you don't expect to pay tax on your earnings in country
A, and then tax on the already-taxed earnings when they arrive with you
in country B, right?
Wrong.
Unless there exists a specific treaty between country A and country B,
providing for reciprocal exemption from double taxation, you're out of
luck. A reverse double taxation treaty between two countries basically
says "we will forego collecting tax on income being paid to a resident
of the other country, in favour of their domestic tax authority, if they
do the same for us" -- that is, you only need to pay your own country's
income tax. But you need to *prove* you're a resident of country B
before country A will waive their withholding, and this requires
Paperwork.
To make matters worse ... there's no UN treaty on double taxation. All
the agreements are bilateral! As the UK's Inland Revenue website
helpfully explains, The UK is a world leader in reverse double taxation
treaties, and is signatory to over a hundred of the things -- in total,
there's a web of more than 1200 such treaties worldwide.
Now for my question.
Has anyone here, as a taxpayer residing in the UK, sold a book in Spain?
And if so, do you remember what particular proof of residence the
Spanish tax authority required?
Before I dive into the bowels of the Inland Revenue's switchboard once
more, to do battle with the hydra that is international reverse double
taxation law?
Whimper ....
-- Charlie
Boudewijn Rempt
> Wrong.
Still, isn't it a consolation that you're now in the same position as
Wodehouse, only not so bad?
Me, I did this much smarter: I earned so little with the book I got
published in USA, that I sailed right under the rader of both income tax
authorities.
Mary Gentle
Stross) wrote:
> You're probably thinking "if you didn't write them you wouldn't have to
> pay tax on the royalties", right?
>
> That's true. But there's a difference between paying tax -- and paying
> tax twice.
>
> SINGULARITY SKY (the first novel) has been a success: enough that
> translations into German, Spanish, and Czech are in the works, with
> several other languages pending.
[...]
My experience is that you sign a piece of paper for the relevant foreign
country, which you have to get stamped by your local tax office in the UK,
and then you only pay income tax in the UK. This applies to all the
European countries I've had translations in so far - I'm used to seeing
the French, German and Italian ones go by; but I'm /fairly/ sure there was
one for the Czech ASH. Not sure what's happening about the Russian and
Israeli deals. (And for the US, there's a similar sign-a-piece-of-paper
deal, but it's a different form.)
So my conviction is that you _shouldn't_ be paying tax more than once on
any edition of Singularity Sky that you've mentioned.
> Now for my question.
>
> Has anyone here, as a taxpayer residing in the UK, sold a book in Spain?
> And if so, do you remember what particular proof of residence the
> Spanish tax authority required?
>
> Before I dive into the bowels of the Inland Revenue's switchboard once
> more, to do battle with the hydra that is international reverse double
> taxation law?
>
> Whimper ....
By one of those coincidences that we ought to use more in fiction, in the
same download of newsgroup messages that I got this one in, I had an email
telling me that the deal's just been done for a Spanish ASH!
The publication usually progresses with the speed of an arthritic slug, so
I wouldn't normally be worrying about it - but it does give me an excuse
to mail the foreign rights person back and say 'how does the tax thing
work?', if you'd like me to.
Mary
Most recently published:
1610: A SUNDIAL IN A GRAVE, novel, Orion UK, hc & tpb
CARTOMANCY, short story collection, Orion UK, pb
Charlie Stross
as <mary_...@cix.co.uk> declared:
> My experience is that you sign a piece of paper for the relevant foreign
> country, which you have to get stamped by your local tax office in the UK,
> and then you only pay income tax in the UK.
Correct.
The problem is, the Spanish publisher doesn't goddamn know what the
piece of paper they need *IS* -- and neither do I, or my (American)
agent. Sigh. It's a different piece of paper for each country.
>> Before I dive into the bowels of the Inland Revenue's switchboard once
>> more, to do battle with the hydra that is international reverse double
>> taxation law?
>>
>> Whimper ....
>
> By one of those coincidences that we ought to use more in fiction, in the
> same download of newsgroup messages that I got this one in, I had an email
> telling me that the deal's just been done for a Spanish ASH!
>
> The publication usually progresses with the speed of an arthritic slug, so
> I wouldn't normally be worrying about it - but it does give me an excuse
> to mail the foreign rights person back and say 'how does the tax thing
> work?', if you'd like me to.
Yes please!
-- Charlie
Mary Gentle
Stross) wrote:
> Stoned koala bears drooled eucalyptus spittle in awe
> as <mary_...@cix.co.uk> declared:
>
> > My experience is that you sign a piece of paper for the relevant
> > foreign country, which you have to get stamped by your local tax
> > office in the UK, and then you only pay income tax in the UK.
>
> Correct.
>
> The problem is, the Spanish publisher doesn't goddamn know what the
> piece of paper they need *IS* -- and neither do I, or my (American)
> agent. Sigh. It's a different piece of paper for each country.
All the bits of paper just turn up on my doorstep, without me having to
know anything about it... which is just the way I like it. :)
> >> Before I dive into the bowels of the Inland Revenue's switchboard
> > once
> >> more, to do battle with the hydra that is international reverse
> > double
> >> taxation law?
> >>
> >> Whimper ....
> >
> > By one of those coincidences that we ought to use more in fiction, in
> > the same download of newsgroup messages that I got this one in, I had
> > an email telling me that the deal's just been done for a Spanish ASH!
> >
> > The publication usually progresses with the speed of an arthritic
> > slug, so I wouldn't normally be worrying about it - but it does give
> > me an excuse to mail the foreign rights person back and say 'how does
> > the tax thing work?', if you'd like me to.
>
> Yes please!
No problem. I've mailed Jill this morning, so we'll see what she says...
Mary Gentle
<re income tax: Spain and UK>
Well, apparently a tax form is in the post to me even now. :) Jill mailed
me back the answer as follows (I include all details, for general
interest):
> it depends if he lives in
> UK or US. If the former he will need an EE-RU from Inspector of Foreign
>Dividends (the last number I had was 0115 974 2123); if the latter, he
>needs a certifed letter from the IRS/Treasury Department.
So it looks like you need the EE-RU. Hope this sorts the problem...
Charlie Stross
as <mary_...@cix.co.uk> declared:
>> it depends if he lives in
>> UK or US. If the former he will need an EE-RU from Inspector of Foreign
>>Dividends (the last number I had was 0115 974 2123); if the latter, he
>>needs a certifed letter from the IRS/Treasury Department.
>
> So it looks like you need the EE-RU. Hope this sorts the problem...
Thanks! Now to go on a paper-chase ...
-- Charlie
Mary Gentle
Stross) wrote:
Heh. Best of luck. :)
Mean Green Dancing Machine
Boudewijn Rempt <bo...@valdyas.org> wrote:
>
>Me, I did this much smarter: I earned so little with the book I got
>published in USA, that I sailed right under the rader of both income
>tax authorities.
Really? I thought Qt was more popular than that.
--
--- Aahz <*> (Copyright 2004 by aa...@pobox.com)
Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6 http://rule6.info/
Androgynous poly kinky vanilla queer het Pythonista
President Clinton fucked an intern. President Bush is fucking you.
Which is worse?
Boudewijn Rempt
> In article <40c61dec$0$29656$e4fe...@dreader7.news.xs4all.nl>,
> Boudewijn Rempt <bo...@valdyas.org> wrote:
>>
>>Me, I did this much smarter: I earned so little with the book I got
>>published in USA, that I sailed right under the rader of both income
>>tax authorities.
>
> Really? I thought Qt was more popular than that.
It is, but the publisher had this idea of putting the complete text up on a
website, because of open content and all that... I didn't like it at the
time, and I liked it even less when I discovered that the University of New
South Wales uses my book as a set text. In its web form. With the example
code with the author name stripped off so the students don't even know who
to blame for the bugs.
And then the publisher didn't manage to get the book distributed by the
distributor Amazon uses, so it's a special order item, with a warning that
it may take months to deliver -- which means almost nobody orders it
through Amazon.
In Germany and France, some bookshops carry the book, but the price is
almost E90 -- of which maybe $20 goes to the publisher, and 10% of that to
me.
And the publisher's own webshop is down more often than not, too.
So, not being able to get a paper copy, and generally being happy with the
web version, it's only the real enthusiasts then contact me, I tend to send
them one of my author's copies.
I've earned less with this book than with a single article for Dr Dobbs --
and it took so much time writing that I kind dropped out of the loop for
article writing.
--
Boudewijn Rempt | http://www.valdyas.org/fading/index.cgi
Mean Green Dancing Machine
Boudewijn Rempt <bo...@valdyas.org> wrote:
>Mean Green Dancing Machine wrote:
>> In article <40c61dec$0$29656$e4fe...@dreader7.news.xs4all.nl>,
>> Boudewijn Rempt <bo...@valdyas.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>Me, I did this much smarter: I earned so little with the book I got
>>>published in USA, that I sailed right under the rader of both income
>>>tax authorities.
>>
>> Really? I thought Qt was more popular than that.
>
>It is, but the publisher had this idea of putting the complete text up
>on a website, because of open content and all that... I didn't like
>it at the time, and I liked it even less when I discovered that the
>University of New South Wales uses my book as a set text. In its web
>form. With the example code with the author name stripped off so the
>students don't even know who to blame for the bugs.
>
Ouch! That's pretty damn painful. No wonder I haven't seen much of you
on c.l.py lately. :-(
Boudewijn Rempt
> Ouch! That's pretty damn painful. No wonder I haven't seen much of you
> on c.l.py lately. :-(
That's more because clpy has become so incredibly busy, and because I've
started working on KOffice, which means C++.