You may have to pay taxes on income from US customers. It is best to consult an attorney.
Nonsense. Your moniker serves you well ;)
As long as you do not incorporate in the US you do not pay taxes in the US, when you do the rules change and depending on the precise ownership structure and form of incorporation you then may have to pay taxes. For instance, you will have to pay sales tax to sales done to residents of the state where you incorporate.
It all revolves around the concept of having a 'nexus' in some state in the US. As long as that isn't the case you are not liable for taxes, since there is nothing that could be taxed. As soon as you have an agent or presence in the US that you control that changes.
> It is best to consult an attorney.
That is always good advice.
If you have an agent or reseller in the US you may be required to collect US taxes from your/their customers, depending on the parties to the contractual relationship and the flow of money.
(Unfortunately professional advice doesn't always give you someone to sue in case of disaster, as advice can be wrong but not negligent. It's a good start though, and insurance is available against some risks as well.)
Or even without :)
> If you have an agent or reseller in the US you may be required to collect US taxes from your/their customers, depending on the parties to the contractual relationship and the flow of money.
This is very true. It mostly applies to sales tax.
> (Unfortunately professional advice doesn't always give you someone to sue in case of disaster, as advice can be wrong but not negligent. It's a good start though, and insurance is available against some risks as well.)
This is also true, and something that plenty of people seem to be unaware of. You and nobody but you are responsible for your taxes. If your accountant or lawyer fuck up YOU are liable for the deficit in taxes, not they.
And that's pretty logical, since you were responsible for your taxes anyway, hiring someone to do some work for you doesn't change that in any way that matters.
You may or may not have a case against them depending on the amount of negligence involved, but usually they're pretty good about covering their asses, and leaving yours exposed.
I've had a (fortunately small) issue like this with a bookkeeper doing our payroll, he forgot a 400 euro deduction for some government fund. That wouldn't have been a serious problem if it didn't take over two years before the fault was detected. So, then you owe x employees400 eurosy months to plug the hole. No fun.
If in doubt, consult an accountant.
Rather than asking a Tax Attorney could you ask the IRS? They should know! Bet they won't tell you though.
I sell to US customers every day and do not have a US presence, please.
> Rather than asking a Tax Attorney could you ask the IRS? They should know!
Absolutely they do.
> Bet they won't tell you though.
Sure they will. And they'll be nice about it too.
OTOH I'm also the only person I personally know who wound up filing the simplest US tax form along with a handwritten note describing additional income that was not taxable for a reason that could not be found on any US tax form. For the curious, that reason can be found as article XX in http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-trty/canada.pdf. (That is a later form of the treaty than the one I was using, but article XX is unchanged.)
As for the communications with the IRS, compared to similar institutions in other countries they are absolutely stellar.
Please note that that is a relative statement :)
As for similar institutions in other countries, the only one I have experience with is Canada, and my experience with them has been orders of magnitude better than my experience with the USA. How do you think I tracked down the right article in the US/Canada income tax treaty to avoid double-taxation?
I was in the bizarre situation of being a US citizen living in the US, going to a US school, being paid a scholarship from the Canadian government that was not taxable in the US. To make things worse I was actually a dual citizen in a country that barely acknowledged the possibility of such. In short I was that bureaucratic nightmare called "an exception they don't have any forms for".
That can have it's advantages too :)
I misremembered by the way, it's called the 183 day rule (it's been a decade, apologies). Anyway ,here is some info on it, it seems that you may be exempted from Canadian taxes under that rules, because you are spending less than 183 days per year in Canada:
http://www.google.com/search?q=canada+taxes+183+day+rule
But maybe the specifics of the scholarship change that again.
However the sum was so small that I didn't owe any taxes on it. I still filed though.