YouTube may charge up to 24% tax on US-based earnings if creators don't submit tax info

YouTube is one of the largest content creation platforms in the world with a reach that spans more than 2 billion users worldwide. India has a countless number of successful and semi-successful content creators on YouTube who depend on the Ad revenue and sponsorships from their videos as their means for earning money. In recent news, Google has announced that they are going to start charging taxes to content creators who are based outside of the US. Read on to know how this will affect content creators for Youtube India. 

YouTube To Implement Additional Taxes On Non-US Content Creators 

As per the Google announcement, content creators who profit from their YouTube videos with views from the US will have to pay a proportionate amount of taxes. Google has announced that they may start to implement these taxes as early as June 2021. It should be noted, this policy only affects non-US-based content creators, as the US YouTubers already come under the country's tax systems. 

How Will The New Tax System Work? 

Apart from Ad Revenue, Google will also be accounting for taxes on other revenue methods like channel memberships, Super Chat and chat donations. The official Google support forum says, “all monetizing creators on YouTube, regardless of their location in the world, are required to provide tax info. Please submit your tax info as soon as possible. If your tax info isn’t provided by May 31, 2021, Google may be required to deduct up to 24% of your total earnings worldwide.” So, unless Indian Youtubers want to face hefty taxes, they should submit their tax information to their Google Adsense account as soon as possible. 

As per Google's blog, if content creators do not submit their tax information and their accounts are classified as a business account, Google may deduct up to 30% of tax from the creator's US revenue. If the content creator classifies as an individual account and does not submit their tax info, they may be charged up to 24% of their US revenue. India and the US have a special tax treaty in place. Essentially, if you qualify under the US-India tax treaty as a YouTube content creator, you will only have to pay a 15% tax on your revenue from the US viewers.