Medium Stripe and International considerations?
There’s a grey zone in making money across borders. I love this picture because it sums up my emotions on the whole topic of computers, money, international tax treatment and all the other things.
See, I am an accountant in British Columbia. A small business and personal tax consideration specialist (estates and farms are also thing I do well). I really am a registered CPA, just not under this name, so there.
Here’s my certification…
As such, each time I think or ponder on this, the question comes to me, “I wonder if they’re doing this right, hope they don’t get flagged and audited. Do -I- need to do anything else to cover my own ass? Now, I realize that being based in the United States of America, Medium is probably doing everything it needs to do, and US based contributors that are receiving payments from Medium are all working above board to make sure everyone is doing things right.
There’s another post on Stripe and options and such coming (it’s in draft, I have to double check some stuff), but that’s Stripe and integration for US and other’s, look for that in a week or so.
For now, my concern was how is the money (a paltry $3.00 for two months, but I’m not really trying), flowing and how is it treated as it shifts across borders and tax jurisdictions?
If I were to earn $3.00 in Canada from efforts and sources in Canada, I would have to report that as earned income from a sole proprietorship (unless I was incorporated, but that’s again a different topic), and I would be able to deduct any expenses from that (coffee costs anyone?)
Coming across the line if I had investment or business income originating in the USA, I would either need a US Tax identification number as an extra, or something like that (third article anyone?).
As far as reading fine print however, in both Medium’s and Stripe’s operations manuals (yeah, legalese), if you’re a US taxpayer, you’re golden. If you’re in Canada like myself, or Australia or anywhere else that Stripe pays out to, you’re treated as though you’re a business operating independent of other personal tax concerns.
So, report at full received value in your home currency, and treat as income earned from carrying on a business. In Canada I know how that works, elsewhere not so much.
This was a good article to get my mind working along the correct lines, I’ll be back when I’ve done some researching into the variables and other considerations.
This was fun. Cheers.
Duke.
