itch.io

Well technically, if you select to have Itch collect payments for you, that's indeed what's happening. Itch is the one selling your stuff, and you're collecting royalty on Itch's sales. 

Thanks a lot for the answer @hechelion!

I've read up a lot more on this in the meantime, and at first it seemed like opening up an LLC as a foreigner would be the best idea because you technically shouldn't be taxed on work that you do outside the US. But it seems the law has changed recently and if income from places such as Itch counts as Royalty, you still have to pay 26% tax on it.

Oh well. I'll have to see if there's a different way for me to avoid double-taxation I guess. As per your example, with a sale in the US I'd be instantly 45% down, plus the 20% fees and taxes on my end, and I'd only take 35 cents on the dollar. And I'm pretty sure I'd face the same 30% withholding fee if I did the direct payment method too.

Thanks again though!

Hi! So basically my country (Kosovo) has no tax treaty with the US, and it seems that because of it, according to the Itch I'm subject to a 30% withholding rate on any income generated through Itch. My questions are:

There is basically no way around this without a tax treaty, right? And there is no point in entering a Tax Identification Number without a treaty either, right? Should I go about this in a different way such as try to open a business in the US instead and obtain a Foreign Tax ID?

Also, how exactly is this 30% applied? Is it applied after processing fees? How would a $10 transaction look in this case?

And lastly, would it be immoral if I tried to go as low as possible on the revenue sharing part with Itch to try and mitigate this %30 tax a little 😅?