Death and Taxes – not hand in hand after all…

I won’t go on at length, because my blog is “niche” enough already, but I have been dreading signing up to self-publish on CreateSpace (an Amazon company) because I’d heard that they withhold tax at a rate of 30% for foreign people. (Apparently, Canada is foreign.)

There is a way around this, CreateSpace will tell you. First, you need to get an officially certified copy of your passport, which is not the same as a notarized copy because it will cost you a lot more. Then, you submit them (or the original passport – ha ha ha) with a bunch of other paperwork, including a letter from your prospective “employer”, to the IRS to eventually, someday, get an ITIN – taxpayer identification number. You can do this the slow-boat way by mail or submit it – for another fee – to a certified “receiver” company in your foreign location. Either way, once you have your ITIN, you just submit a form to CreateSpace telling them not to keep your money or give it to the IRS… simple.

Anyway, that was the process I was dreading. And I put it off and put it off and put it off… until I finally, deciding not to put it off any longer, serendipitously came across this blog post which offers step-by-step instructions to make it truly easy, thanks to the Employer Identification Number (EIN). One ten-minute call to the IRS later, I was all set with my taxpayer identification number. (Well, ten minutes AFTER the one-hour hold time because I picked a Monday morning to call – the good news was the call was free because I used Google, and I just walked around with my cordless headphones and did other stuff while I waited.)

I still have to send the form in to CreateSpace telling them not to keep my money. The rate for Canadians is 0%, which is great (more for me!), but when we move to Israel, I will need to submit another form with my current address, and I suspect the rate is 10 or 15% (the rate is determined by pre-existing tax treaties between governments). Whatever it is, it’s still better than 30%.

Naomi Rivka is out delivering the form to the mailbox now. So now I’m all set! In about 2 weeks, they’ll have it and hopefully, someday, I will “tip” over the royalty threshold and will actually get a cheque. Oops… I mean, a check.

Of course, if anyone wants to help me towards that goal… click this link (or see my next post!) to see what I’m selling on there these days. :-)

Comments

לימודי קודש/Limudei Kodesh Copywork & Activity Printables

Welcome to my Limudei Kodesh / Jewish Studies copywork and activity printables page. As of June 2013, I am slowly but surely moving all my printables over to 4shared because Google Docs / Drive is just too flaky for me. What you’ll find here: Weekly Parsha Copywork More Parsha Activities More Chumash / Tanach Activities Yom Tov Copywork & Activities Tefillah Copywork Pirkei Avos / Pirkei Avot Jewish Preschool Resources Other printables! For General Studies printables and activities, including Hebrew-English science resources and more, click here . For Miscellaneous homeschool helps and printables, click here . If you use any of my worksheets, activities or printables, please leave a comment or email me at Jay3fer “at” gmail “dot” com, to link to your blog, to tell me what you’re doing with it, or just to say hi! If you want to use them in a school, camp or co-op setting, please email me (remove the X’s) for rates. If you just want to say Thank You,...

Hebrew/ עברית & English General Studies Printables

For Jewish Studies, including weekly parsha resources and copywork, click here . If you use any of my worksheets, activities or printables, please leave a comment or email me at Jay3fer “at” gmail “dot” com, to link to your blog, to tell me what you’re doing with it, or just to say hi! If you want to use them in a school, camp or co-op setting, please email me (remove the X’s) for rates. If you enjoy these resources, please consider buying my weekly parsha book, The Family Torah : the story of the Torah, written to be read aloud – or any of my other wonderful Jewish books for kids and families . English Worksheets & Printables: (For Hebrew, click here ) Science : Plants, Animals, Human Body Math Ambleside : Composers, Artists History Geography Language & Literature Science General Poems for Elemental Science . Original Poems written by ME, because the ones that came with Elemental Science were so awful....

What do we tell our kids about Chabad and “Yechi”?

If I start by saying I really like Chabad, and adore the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, z"l, well... maybe you already know where I'm headed. Naomi Rivka has been asking lately what I think about Chabad. She asks, in part, because she already knows how I feel. She already knows I’m bothered, though to her, it’s mostly about “liking” and “not liking.” I wish things were that simple. Our little neighbourhood in Israel has a significant Chabad presence, and Chabad conducts fairly significant outreach within the community. Which sounds nice until you realize that this is a religious neighbourhood, closed on Shabbos, where some huge percentage of people are shomer mitzvos. Sure, it’s mostly religious Zionist, and there are a range of observances, for sure, but we’re pretty much all religious here in some way or another. So at that point, this isn’t outreach but inreach . Convincing people who are religious to be… what? A lot of Chabad’s efforts here are focused o...

Adventures in Mama-Land

Search This Blog