Canadian Tax

If you are in Canada, and have no U.S. business relations, is it true no tax is required?

 

not required by google but still you have to file them by yourself

 

Well it depends on what you're talking about specifically...

If you are selling a product or service and you are based in Canada, your customer is not, then there is no sales tax for you to collect, or pay to the government... Tax laws depend on whether we are talking about a sole proprietorship/partnership, a limited company or a corporation etc... There are several factors to consider...

If you are just talking about to tell Google or other places like that for income, well then generally speaking, it doesn't matter to them, the onus is on you to report your earnings and pay your taxes....

If you'd like more info on Canadian taxes feel free to contact me... I live in Canada and have been doing business over the internet for years; I've learned a thing or two about taxes, and how to distribute the numbers in your business to ensure you get the most of your money.

 

What TheException said.

Basically, Canadian sales tax works on three tiers:

If vendor and customer are in the same province: GST, plus PST if applicable (PST doesn't apply to web design in Ontario, but that's the only one I know off the top of my head)

If vendor and customer are in Candaa: GST only applies.

If vendor is in Canada and customer is outside of it: no sales tax applies.

The revenue and expenses still have to be declared no matter what.

 

With an internet or computer based business, you can write off depreciation of assets easily because computers and tech stuff values drop worse than cars...

 

I'm sorry I should have been more clear. Is there no tax for Google AdSense if you are from Canada, or more specifically, Alberta?

 

I beleive mhamdi had the answer there... I don't beleive Google requires it to be deducted from your earnings, but when you file your taxes with the government for the year you have to claim google adsense revenue as taxable income.

 

He did. Income is income, no matter which side of the border it comes from.

But on the plus side, so are expenses (if you use a US-based host, that is.)

 

Google wants me to fill out a tax form that includes having to have a US taxpayer identification number. Apparently I have to do this because I have web hosting in the US. It says you have to fill out the form if you have "activities" in the US, which include any services at all, and it specifically mentions web hosting. I have no idea what the hell this form means by "compensation" and a bunch of other crap that I don't want to deal with. What is everyone else's experience with this? Do I have to get a TIN? Or should I just switch over to hosting in Canada and be done with it? This blows. Thanks.

 

TrentR... welcome to DP. I haven't had a problem like this before. I don't know the exact answer. Perhaps try sending them an email nicely saying "I don't operate my business out of the US... I am Canadian... I just have b2b service from one US company. I don't see how you could expect somebody to get a TIN from the US for this. If this is required, I will simply take my business out of the US and back to Canada, I don't see why you would want that."

Best of luck!

 

The AdSense program requires that you provide a valid tax ID number if you are an American. It requires that you declare yourself as a foreign corporation if you are outside the USA. You are excusing yourself from the purvue of the U.S. government.

Google pays you your AdSense revenue as per their policy. You keep track of your AdSense revenue. At the end of the year, you add that to your other sources of income for tax purposes.

Google does not pay you GST. Consequently, you do not remit GST. Remember, you are selling ad space to Google, a U.S. company, which is reselling to other companies.

I am no accountant or tax lawyer. But, I think this is going to be close to what they would say.

 

TrentR, I'm in your boat. The only dealings I have in the US are that I use a US-based web host, but I don't own a server.

The wording from https://www.google.com/adsense/account-tax?goto=wizard.1&go=Continue+>> seems to answer the question satisfactorily for both of our situations (the bold part is the important part...I did that):

Basically, as long as you're not operating a US-based business, you're fine.

 

You call this nice?

 

You do not have to file tax information with Google if you do not reside in the USA. However any money that you earn from Google Adsense must be claimed on your income tax.

If you are making enough I would recommend registering a business and then claiming all of your equipment, or if you plan on doing all of your business in your own name you don't even have to register a business name.

 

lol... nope, not really. That's why I made sure I said to say it nicely! I wasn't feeling very verbose at the time when I wrote that.