Need some help with W-8BEN form for non-US publishers

W-8BEN form

[jmorgan]

I am a webmaster from Australia that uses Chitika's eMinimalls.

Chitika just sent me an e-mail telling me I need to fill in the W-8BEN form because my earnings for 2005 is over $600 (or something or other).

Has anyone filled out one of these before? If so, could you give me a hand as to what I need to fill in so that I can get my full earnings without any of it being withheld by the IRS?

In particular, I need help with:
- What to fill out/check for sections 8, 9 and 11
- Which boxes to check in section 10

The form is available at:
[irs.gov...]

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

[Dinkar]

Don't fill anything in those fields.

[jmorgan]

Thanks for the advice Dinkar. But do I need to at least check one or more of the boxes in Section 10?

[SeanW]

I think you want 10a checked, I'm sure Oz has a tax treaty with the US. Look around for the tax treaty, you can specify a 0% rate in line 11 if you can find the section for "professional services" or whatever it's called (in the Canadian treaties it's section XI or XV or something like that).

I've run into stuff like this when dealing with book publishers in the States (I'm Canadian). In the couple of situations I've had to do this, it ended up being a case of me calling/emailing their accounting dept and explaining that since I'm doing my work from Canada and am a contractor, no tax witholding is required regardless of what forms I fill out.

You could also go through the process of trying to get a US ITIN, but it's painful. I gave up after the 4th or 5th rejection.

Sean

[Zygoot]

If you don't live in the U.S. and have no U.S. business activities (like a server owned - not rented - by you) then you don't have the fill in a W8BEN form.

Just e-mail Chitika with the message that you don't have U.S. business activities. Submitting a W8BEN isn't required in this case.