Program owners: if you require a W8 form, fire your accountant.
 

A W8 form (W8BEN) is only required to be filled out for US SOURCED income. Now "US Sourced" doesn't mean where the person writing the check is, it means where the work was done by the PAYEE.

The OECD (of which the USA is a member of) put its heads together many years ago and determined that if you OWN a webserver in a country, then the websites you have on that server are producing income SOURCED in that country. If you merely RENT a webserver or webspace in a country, the websites on it are producing FOREIGN SOURCED income.

FOREIGN SOURCED income is not subject to tax in the USA and does NOT require form W8BEN to be filled out. W8BEN is for foreigners to claim exemption from withholding tax on US SOURCED INCOME for tax treaty obligations.

The instructions for W8BEN are clear:

"Who must file. You must give Form W-8BEN to the withholding agent or payer if you are a foreign person and you are the beneficial owner of an amount SUBJECT TO WITHHOLDING."

Like I said, FOREIGN SOURCED INCOME IS NOT SUBJECT TO WITHHOLDING.

All that is required is that the Non-US affiliate CERTIFIES that he does not have any US-SOURCED income and that he is not a US Taxpayer.

Google has it spot on, on their Adsense tax information page:

https://www.google.com/adsense/taxinfo:

So refusing to pay a Non-US affiliate because he did not send you a W8 form is.... stealing!

That's all folks...

bump, ffn are now requiring it, I've also got asked by another program for this. WTF.

I got the request and I'm a us citizen and the form says not for use by us citizens..

Do not use this form for: A U.S. citizen or other U.S. person, including a resident alien individual

Instead, use Form:
W-9•

I would assume that they still need to file something to show where they're sending money. :winkwink:

But what do I know?

:thumbsup

just fill one out, scan it in, and send the same copy to every program that requests it.... it's not like the form has any sensitive info on it....

If the affiliate is not a US citizen and does not have any property in the US (that is used in relation to the activities for which the affiliate is being paid) and does not have any employees in the US, then a simple email stating exactly that is more then enough. In fact all that Google requires their non-US adsense users to do is to click an "I certify" button.

If the program owner insists on some kind of signed document, put this in a doc, print it, sign it, date it, scan it and email them the pdf:

I recently came across an interesting blogpost about this subject. I'll try to find it later today and post the link for those who want more info.

cliff notes:
W9: for US entities
W8ben: for US sourced income earned by aliens. The purpose of this form is to exempt you from US tax withholding. You then pay the taxes in your own country (a country the Us has a tax treaty with)

If you are not a US citizen/company etc and do not own any property in the US and have no employees in the US, you must not file a w8ben form. If you do, then you're making a false statement.

Funny how most mainstream companies like Shareasale gets this right and lots of supposedly big adult companies get this wrong.

It is a sign of the times. Scamming foreign affiliates and hiding behind obscure tax forms that do not even apply in the first place.