Quote:
Originally Posted by James_Wilde
Call the Foreign Office or visit your local passport office and get a certified copy of your passport. Cost here in Sweden was about 300 kr, or, say, £25. Send that with the form W7 you can download from the IRS site to the address in Austin, TX, and wait. They say it takes 8 weeks. On the same site you can find copies of the Tax Treaties applicable, and you have to cite treaty and paragraph in the application.
Unfortunately I only applied four weeks ago, so I can't yet say how accurate the 8 week estimate is. When you get your ITIN you can send a copy of it to Smashwords, Kobo, B&N, Amazon, Old Uncle Tom Cobbley and all. |
(quoting my own optimistic post from 7 weeks ago)
Ho, ho, ho! 8-10 weeks they say in the brochure, for mail to foreign destinations. It's now 11 weeks so I rang to ask if there was a problem, and of course there was. Why are government employees in ANY country so dumb, and rigid?
My application was rejected - though nobody was going to tell me so if I hadn't asked - because it apparently lacked supporting documentation. I applied on the basis of exception 2, but should have applied on the basis of exception 1d, and the extra documentation I need is - wait for it - a letter on the letterhead paper of the company which is going to withhold tax stating that they must withhold tax from <my name which must be in the letter> on account of royalties payable to a non-resident alien. Can you see Amazon giving me a letter like that? Or Smashwords or B&N or Kobobooks?
So I have two choices: let them all withhold 30% - the tax is anyway higher than that here in Sweden; or get them to send the money to our daughter who happens to live there, and let her pay the tax, if she pays less than 30%.
Has anyone got such a letter from one of the retail outlets btw? And how about that business with Smashwords about how they're just a distributor or something?