Inland Revenue targets e-traders and affiliates

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Hi

You probably won't visit the Inland Revenue site very often (As an accountant I visit it every day).

New tax collection initiative re affiliates and e-traders at http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/findout/index.htm .

HMRC obviously see a4uforum as the easiest way to reach affiliates as they are now banner advertising on this site.

If anyone needs further advice send me a PM.

Regards

Keith
HRBS
Small Business Specialists

[Supercod]

"Heard of affiliates?
Affiliates are the e-commerce version of the traditional agent/referral sales model. An e-commerce affiliate is a website that advertises products or services, but refers potential customers to an e-commerce site to purchase the product. For example, many affiliates refer customers to sites like Amazon.com. If the customer makes a purchase, the affiliate who referred them normally receives a small payment.

Affiliates may be liable to pay tax on the payments they receive for referrals. If you are uncertain of what your status is, contact HMRC for more guidance."

What they should have put is, “we didn't know what an Affiliate was but when these people popped up paying us hundreds of thousands of pounds in tax and working from there bedroom we got very excited, so excited in fact that we been busy sending our agents to various big Affiliates in the UK to make sure we got every penny coming our way” ... Hands up every Affiliate who got a visit from HM Revenue & Customs in 2006... I know of at least a dozen big Affiliates that did and many more smaller ones... they sure are very interested in what we do, a mark of just how much money and business is flowing via Affiliates these days.

If you’re thinking of becoming an Affiliate you should read up on what you have to do to tell them you’re self employed, pretty straight forward for Affiliates with Ltd companies as all of them should have accountants but I a know for sure some people starting out will not have taken in to account you will probably need an Accountant to keep you on the straight and narrow.