Depending upon where you live in the world, you may be familiar with the concept of sales tax with different names like IVA, ICMS, ISS, GST, HST, JCT or VAT. Some foreign States, countries, economic/political unions—and even an important author group I’ll cover ahead—are all trying to deceive us into thinking that we—the authors and creators who own e-commerce websites to sell our own works—have the oblgation to become their sales tax collectors, even for downloadable digital files like audiobooks and ebooks. That is not the case if we don’t have a legal presence within those foreign States or countries, unless there is a mutual treaty for that between our own State and another State/country, or unless we reach a nexus threshold (usually US$100,000 per year in sales for that particular foreign State/country). My company TecnoTur.LLC and I happen to reside in the State of Florida in the United States. I don’t charge any sales tax on purchases made directly from my audiobook and ebook sales via their matching websites, because downloadable e-books and audiobooks are tax-exempt in Florida. In addition, TecnoTur.LLC has no legal presence in any other State or country. According to the Florida Department of Revenue, we Florida merchants are not obliged to collect another State’s sales tax unless we have a legal presence there, or unless our sales reach that other State’s economic nexus threshold (usually US$100,000 in sales per year for that particular State). If we do not meet that threshold (I don’t yet), the foreign State or country requires its own residents to self-report and pay a use tax directly. In other words, it’s the buyer’s responsibility—in those cases—to self-report voluntarily to his/her own government.

Above, screenshot of my Sales Tax Policy of one of my books on its direct sales website, The Castilian Conspiracy.

Above, screenshot of Ernesto Morales-Ramos’s Sales Tax Policy for his book’s direct sales website, The Disciple. In his case, he’s in Puerto Rico, where these sales are also exempt from sales tax.

The falsehood that we—the owners of e-commerce websites—must become the sales tax collectors of foreign States/countries is further magnified by the biased advice from the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi). Their inclination is made quite clear when we observe that the Alliance of Independent Authors’ platinum sponsor (i.e its primary financial donor) is Amazon KDP, a company that is quite motivated to discourage authors from doing direct sales, for obvious reasons, by inventing non-existent requirements. Don’t get me wrong: I have no objection to distributing books (especially ebooks and print books, not audiobooks) via Amazon. Amazon certainly deserves its portion of the pie in those cases of ebooks and print books when sold via Amazon’s websites. However, that should happen only for people who discover it on Amazon and are unaware of the direct sales website. I will consider selling audiobooks via Amazon the day that Amazon’s audiobook royalties begin to approach the fairness offered by Libro.fm and Spotify.

Above, screenshot of one of my Sates Tax Policy on one of my books in Castilian, La conspiración del castellano.

The Beatles’ opinion

«Taxman» is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1966 album Revolver. Written by the group’s lead guitarist, George Harrison, with some lyrical assistance from John Lennon, it protests against the higher level of progressive tax imposed in the United Kingdom by the Labour government of Harold Wilson, which saw the Beatles paying over 90 per cent of their earnings to the Treasury. The song was selected as the album’s opening track and contributed to Harrison’s emergence as a songwriter beside the dominant Lennon–McCartney partnership. It was the group’s first topical song and the first political statement they had made in their music.

Above, the video is embedded, so even when you watch it here in ProVideo Coalition, the creator (The Beatles YouTube channel) gets credit for the play. However, if you would like to click on the Thumb’s Up symbol or comment below the video on YouTube, click here. If you want to comment on this article, do it below.

Need help?

At TecnoTurPublishing.com and EditorialTecnoTur.com, we help authors with this and other details with our Book Portal or Prolific Website (Portal prolífico o Portal de libro) for direct sales, in addition to affiliate links for direct purchase from the printer.

See related article

E-commerce: EU Withdrawal Button + how merchants can opt out (in some cases)

Image credit

The main image Paying the Tax (The Tax Collector) by Flemish painter Pieter Brueghel the Younger (1564–1638) is in the public domain. Thank you, Pieter!

This is not legal advice

If you have any doubts, have your favorite attorney, advocate, barrister, counsel, counselor, solicitor, lawyer or legal executive review and approve any policy.

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