Many believe in the Right vs Left paradigm. I don’t but many do. I thought the same thing when he chose Biden instead of saying the US Gov.
He’s never been taxed on US views until now. So it hasn’t always been like that for Youtubers outside the US.
I totally agree with you. It’s not worth the hassle and paper work.
Well, the law about taxing foreigners for US sourced businesses has been around for more than 60 years, so what is probable is that Google just detected that his channel isn’t owned by an American and started to withhold his tax.
(And this is also the reason it sucks to get dividends from US companies if you are a foreigner)
An email going out to YouTube creators who live abroad today notifies of a change to YouTube’s payments. Apparently, Google is now required to deduct taxes for the United States from all channels, even those owned by creators who don’t reside in the United States. The email reads:
We’re reaching out because Google will be required to deduct U.S. taxes from payments to creators outside of the U.S. later this year (as early as June 2021). Over the next few weeks, we’ll be asking you to submit your tax info in AdSense to determine the correct amount of taxes to deduct, if any apply. If your tax info isn’t provided by May 31st, 2021, Google may be required to deduct up to 24% of your total earnings worldwide.
Just another reason for the Safe Network. No way to tell who is watching your content or where they are located.
That was my motivation for posting it. 
Further fine-print clarification. This makes it a little more sensible:
“This change to how YouTube handles taxes comes from the US government, specifically under Chapter 3 of the US Internal Revenue Code. Google has the responsibility to collect tax info from all monetizing creators outside of the US and withhold taxes when income is earned from viewers within the US. That means that not all income will be affected, but only that earned from viewers within the United States.”
Yep, withholding tax isn’t new. It’s the default and you have to take steps to avoid it if you are not a US citizen, and you can only do this if your country has a tax treaty with the US.
It is strange, that means they weren’t compliant until this year. Google would be liable for all the taxes it didn’t collect…
The same was true of many online U.S. merchants for many years, some of them large companies like Quill. For many years they never withheld sales taxes from online customers, shifting the burden to individuals themselves, which the relevant tax authorities found impossible to enforce, thus the crackdown on the companies doing the selling. A few years ago virtually all U.S. companies selling items online started withholding taxes, probably due to pressure from the taxing authorities. In most cases, this law does not apply to services though.
Income is income, you can get it by dancing and yet you should get taxes withheld by law… is there a CPA here who can chip in?
Not a CPA but pretty certain U.S. dancers would pay income taxes on their earnings but not sales taxes. If you ran a cybercafe, for instance, you would pay sales tax on the sale of food and beverage but not computer time rental-that would be considered a service. You would pay income taxes on all the cybercafe’s net income though.
Looks like many countries are hoping to levy taxes on Internet businesses in the future. If business moves to Safe Network, then it will become a lot more difficult I think.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/is-a-global-internet-tax-coming-in-2021/ar-BB1cJ9XM
The only reason governments aren’t taxing something is because that something is just too recent. I stll remember the day when buying stuff online from another US state was tax free. That loophole was eventually closed. Eventually everything will be taxed.
You’re right. The legislative interest takes a while to catch up. About 20-30 years in the case of the web. Would probably be a shorter time period for Safe Network enterprises though. The clearnet has pulled back the curtain.
I am afraid that whatever laws they make for clearnet businesses will be vague enough to cover any online business.
My hope is that crypto in various forms will make taxing transactions too difficult and they will revert to taxing property (real estate). Georgism would then stand a chance. I’m not hopeful I will see it in my lifetime though - the rent seeking property rich are a powerful bunch.
Fiat’s days are numbered … I don’t know how long - could be a decade, could be five decades, but eventually it will go out the door.
I believe that most of the ‘tax’ in countries with large governments, comes from fiat printing and that’s not going to be viable when the fiat is worthless. However, taxes on property, ultimately become taxes on the wealthy … and that is a no-go for the oligarchy.
So I expect the ‘play’ will be to tax products as close to the source as they are able - primary producers, ports, and really any physical ‘gate’ they can control with their guns.
Unfortunately for them, I think this means that a centralized government is doomed as the flows won’t come from the banks anymore, they’ll come from the gates – and power is always gathered around the flow of money - as the thieves don’t trust anyone (as well they shouldn’t as taxation is theft and requires amoral and immoral people to administer it).
In the end, local governments and a more cartel-like approach will come about … my current guess anyway.
While many might find that horrific, I believe it will be a vast improvement over where we are today. Existing cartels are violent as they are warring with larger governments. Large scale wars will disappear as they can’t be funded without large sums of looted capital (or fiat printing - looted wealth) - as war is a horrible investment otherwise.
It will be a new world order … but not a brave new world.
If fiat were to disappear, and be largely replaced by say crypto, how would would you see currency fluctuations being dealt with for day-to-day spending?
It’s a matter of arbitrage between commodity pairs. The more that items are priced in a particular crypto, instead of fiat, the more opportunities exist for arbitrage in the crypto market. The more arbitrage, the more price stability.
The bankers and the business media they own like to say that crypto can’t be a replacement for fiat because it’s too unstable - but they know very well that if crypto starts to take the place of fiat, that situation will reverse as more market pairs come to exist for crypto and fewer exist for fiat.
Not specifically related to the above discussion, but as more advocacy for truly free markets: Dr. Ben Rogge’s great (and humorous) talk at a FEE conference (in the 70’s I think).
He discusses Competition and Monopoly – the standard economic view of the time, Kenneth Galbraith’s views, and finally the Schumpeter/Rogge view.
This lecture is really a gem - one of the best out there on the topic IMO. It is an hour long talk - but very much worth the effort.
