Having written the book that you are eagerly waiting to self-publish on Amazon KDP and thus reaching literally millions of audience overnight, there are some pre-work to be done before that success feeling can become your reality.
Updating the tax information, payment and bank information – though necessary to enjoy the fruits of your labour, often are quite confusing – no matter how easy the on-screen instructions are, from Amazon.
I can completely understand your situation, because, I have been there. That’s why I wrote this detailed post with some screenshots to help you quickly pass that phase.
Being an Indian author, I wanted to put this guide so it could help any non-U.S. author on KDP.
Especially more, if you are from India, as the screenshots are more relevant to Indian authors. You will see a step-by-step approach for completing your tax interview. Quite honestly, it’s really easy if you wanted to update it yourself on Amazon, but hey, this guide at least vouches that your submission could be more satisfactory if you had a fellow-author done along with you so you could match and review if everything was done correctly.
So, let’s begin.
Definitive Guide to Completing Tax Interview for Amazon KDP
First, login to your KDP Dashboard and click on your ‘Account’ to go to your account page.
Since my tax info is already updated, you see a green text block there. But if you are updating this for the first time, just simply click on the button that says ‘View/Provide Tax Information‘. As you can see, it’s 15% rate for India as it has a tax treaty with the U.S. (see more info below); or else this could easily be nearly 30%.
That will take you to the Tax Information Interview screen. Here’s where the tax interview is completed. Make sure you have a 10 minute time to finish this in one go. You can anyway save and come later, but it’s preferable to complete in one-sitting.
For the question, ‘For U.S. tax purposes, are you a U.S. person?’ select ‘No‘. Click on ‘Save and continue‘.
On the next page, you will update the ‘Type of beneficial owner’, ‘Place of Organization’, ‘Organization name’ details. Of course, these details (and more such relative details in the upcoming sections of the tax interview) are unique to you and can only be better known by you. Please don’t answer them exactly as I have shown in the screenshots. Decide for yourself, which is applicable to you.
Since we selected ‘non U.S.’ person in the earlier screen, we get the customized questions in this screen for taking further inputs from us.
Tax Information
Choose your respective options. If you are an Indian individual with no company, you can select ‘Individual’ as shown below:
Are you an agent acting as an intermediary?
An intermediary is any person that acts as a custodian, broker, nominee, or otherwise as an agent for another person, regardless of whether that other person is the beneficial owner of the amount paid, a flow-through entity, or other intermediary. If you are an agent acting as an intermediary, select ‘Yes’ for the question, ‘Are you an agent acting as an intermediary?‘, I chose ‘No’ because I am not an intermediary. I am just an author trying to self-publish my book directly with Amazon KDP. Nobody else with me is working on this.
U.S. Person Tests – Individual
Next question tests if you are really a non-U.S. individual from tax’s perspective. So, depending on your life’s situation, choose the options below. For me, none of them apply, so I didn’t check any option.
Tax Identification Number (TIN)
Since we are speaking of a non-U.S. individual, who has a PAN card (applicable to Indian citizens only), you can directly select the 2nd option that says ‘I have a foreign (non-U.S.) income tax identification number‘.
Treaty Benefits
India has an active Double Taxation treaty with the U.S. and thus, as an Indian, you will be eligible to receive a reduction in the statutory withholding tax rate of 30% (of course this is applicable to you only if you qualify to be an Indian resident).
If that’s the case with you (i.e. you are an Indian resident and the treaty applies to you and you don’t qualify to be a U.S. citizen for tax purposes, etc.) then simply check that box after selecting ‘India’ as your ‘Country of Residence‘.
Foreign (non-U.S.) income tax identification number (TIN)
This is where you will input your PAN card number as your Tax Id number.
Hit on ‘Save and continue’ button. The next screen asks you to ‘Review’ the details you have input in a Form format with all the details magically filled up for you. This is the Form W-8Ben which is a Certificate of Foreign Status of Beneficial Owner for United States Tax Withholding and Reporting (Individuals). This form gets electronically submitted to the concerned authorities at/by Amazon.
Consent to electronic delivery of Form 1042-S
On the next screen, you will see a ‘Consent to electronic delivery of Form 1042-S’. You can select the ‘paperless’ option here unless you prefer to send a paper delivery. I recommend going paperless for various reasons – which includes saving trees and time.
Consent to electronic signature
While there is no compulsion for you to go paperless, the benefits are obvious – you need not physically go to the post office or courier to ‘mail’ the documents in an envelope. Similarly, electronic signature is as simple as just keying your full name as per your records and just giving your account’s email address. So, in this section, just select the first option – “I consent to provide my electronic signature”.
Again, it’s your choice.
After selecting the ‘electronic signature’ option, you will have to check approximately 6 checkboxes to testify some questions. These are quite basic and is kind of a review of the information you had already given. Just read them and select accordingly as per your situation. Here’s an example screenshot. Please read them carefully before selecting!
Finally, you give your ‘electronic signature’ by typing your name, date (automatically filled in with your current date), and the email address along with your capacity as ‘individual’ (or whatever applies to you).
Once you are done, just hit on Submit button.
If not satisfied, or if you want to review, you can hit on the ‘Previous’ button).
That’s all. For further information on Amazon KDP Tax interview, please refer to their guide given here.
Once you finish this Tax interview process , ensure you update the bank details as well (Amazon US and India supports EFT) for all other Amazon marketplaces give the ‘Check’ as your option (called as Cheque in India). So your bank details screen in the Account page looks like this:
That’s all folks!
I have a book published on How to Self Publish your eBook in Indian Languages on Amazon KDP (affiliate link) which is a step-by-step guide to self-publish your ebook in Indic Languages – Tamil, Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati and Malayalam.
Succinctly presented. Thank you!
Hi
Thank you for this information.
Can I use a Union Bank of India account?
Hi I need to publish for my daughter who is 15 . Should I create the KDP account in my name and use my tax details as she is a minor
I have a KDP account but i don’t have PAN Card. Can i give my mother’s pan card number in tax information and then publish my book?
Dear Friend
I entered the same name as mentioned in the Pan Card through copy paste, but still, get the following message through the mail by FinOpsTax . Please tell how to fix it.
Legal Name mentioned in the interview does not match with the name mentioned in the PAN provided.
Hie Arun.
I just received a 1042S form from Amazon and I’m completely confused with it.
Do I have to pay them or have they already deducted the amount from my royalties?
Also I don’t have a TIN number so will my pan card number do?
Do I have to update my tax information once I received the 1042S form?
Please pardon me for so many questions coz this is my first time and I really have no idea about Tax Payments.
Please guide me here. ASAP.
I just received a “Tax Talk” email thing from KDP. I’m from India, of course, and don’t know what to do about it. Do I register? I’m so confused.
Thanks for this precious information.
But
Can you explain what is the year-end tax forms for Kindle Direct Publishing authors? Are these paper or paperless forms and what someone should complete in them?
Good, I used PAN card number after reading this post. But how to avoid that 15% withholding rate completely?
I think it’s quite possible through some indirect ways to reduce the 30% completely – please see this blog post from Kindlepreneur https://kindlepreneur.com/remove-30-tax-withholding-non-us-amazon-self-publishers/ for more details on doing this. I have not personally tried it, so if you do please let me know how it went
What about the EIN number , can we Indians get it?
Hi ,
I Gave my PAN CARD details, but it says “Once your taxpayer identification form has been processed and validated, your Royalty payments will be subject to 15.0% U.S. withholding tax based on your previous inputs.” , The tax reduces only upto 15% and not 30%, can you explain why? And whAT if i provide TIN instead of Pan card no will the tax reduce to 30% ?
The 15% reduction is because of the Tax Treaty between U.S. and India – you can read more about it here: https://www.irs.gov/businesses/international-businesses/india-tax-treaty-documents. And I think it’s quite possible through some indirect ways to reduce the 30% completely – please see this blog post from Kindlepreneur https://kindlepreneur.com/remove-30-tax-withholding-non-us-amazon-self-publishers/ for more details on doing this. I have not personally tried it, so if you do please let me know how it went 🙂
What is withholding tax…I mean will U.S. authorities deduct any tax at their end..if yes how we will file return or claim for refund..Kindly let me know what will be my tax position
“Withholding tax” is a type of TDS – Tax Deducted at Source, on income paid. KDP deducts 30% as withholding tax on your royalty earnings by default. But if you declare your PAN number within KDP account, the tax rate reduces to 15% – thanks to a tax treaty between U.S. and India. KDP provides a form around March (this time of the year) known as 1042-S which we may use to attach while we file our tax return – please see this help page: https://www.kdpcommunity.com/s/question/0D5f400000FHzvgCAD/?language=en_US and also read this one to completely avoid the 30% – https://kindlepreneur.com/remove-30-tax-withholding-non-us-amazon-self-publishers/ – I haven’t tried this method though.
Hi arun,
Thanks for your reply. If any individual/sole proprietor earns less than 2.5lakhs in india we get tax exemption. If our total earning including earning from book selling is less than 2.5 lakhs,then it means we should get refund of the amount which will be withheld by US authorities.
So that refund will be paid by govt of india or by us.
Hi Apoorv, yes it should be possible. I guess you will have to file a tax form with the IRS in the U.S. as it was withheld by U.S. and not India – 1040NR is the form, if am not wrong.
Is it safe to give Pan number?
For Foreign (non-U.S.) income tax identification number (TIN), you are providing PAN number.
However, that is not a valid TIN number – PAN card number is not the same as TIN so how can you provide that – afaik, TIN is issued to you by the State Government. Can you confirm that it is ok to use PAN and not the TIN number?
You are correct in what you are saying that TIN is not the same as PAN: and here’s what Amazon KDP help says about this specific piece in question: “If you are claiming a reduced rate of withholding tax under an income tax treaty and do not have a U.S. TIN, provide your foreign (non-U.S.) income tax identification number to receive treaty benefits. This number is issued by your local tax authority or government for income tax purposes.” The closest that goes with this for any common man/individual is the PAN number.
Hi,
In our case, type of ownership is PARTNERSHIP. Questions are different in that case. Can you help?
Sure, although I haven’t checked the tax interview as a partnership yet, I can try and get you some answers. So, where exactly are you getting stuck?
Thank u arun
I have finished my tax portion in kdp
And i subscribed your YouTube
Continue your journey
Wishes from
நண்பன்
மூர்த்தி
Very Helpful Guide. Thank you.
Really a nice article. Informative.Thanks
very helpful guide for tax information on KDP. Without this topic i could have never completed my tax information on KDP. Thanks Arun ji so much
You’re welcome! Glad it helped you.