⚠️The Tax Form will be required for the payments that will be effective from February 20, 2024.
Recent changes on our platform require you to take some additional steps before you request your payout. Please, complete those steps as soon as possible to ensure no payment delays.
NOTE: You need to submit the Tax Form AND your payment method before you can request a payment. Both are requirements.
Completing the Tax Form to avoid double taxation requires mastery and patience. If you are doing it for the first time, it can lead to some confusion. To help you understand the process and easily follow the steps to complete the Tax Form, we will share the story of one of our testers below.
DISCLAIMER: While we do not provide tax, legal, or accounting advice, we will do our best to provide you with the information you need to make your own decision about how to comply with applicable U.S. tax laws. If you still have questions after reviewing the information provided by the IRS, please contact your tax, legal, and/or accounting advisor before completing a U.S. Tax Form.
The tester who lives in a country that is not the US
Including testers who never travel to the US while working or at least never provide services/works when visiting the US.
Claire is a freelance tester living outside of the US, namely in a small town Annecy in France. She will share her story of how she avoided double taxation on the payment from Test IO Inc. Her story will guide you through the process of filling in the W-8BEN form.
How did Claire locate the Tax Form?
To locate the Tax Form, I logged in to my Cirro account and visited the Account & Payout Settings section (available through the Account drop-down in the upper right corner of the Cirro platform). In the Account & Payout Settings, I selected the Billing tab.
In the Billing tab, I could add my Payment Method and Activate it.
IMPORTANT: Adding a Payment Method is mandatory before attempting to file the Tax Form. Without adding my Payment Method, I couldn't start the process of filling in the Tax Form because the button was not displayed.
After I added the Payment Method, the button Complete a Tax Form showed up and I clicked on it.
How did Claire fill in the Tax Form?
As I work as a freelancer for Test IO, I selected the option, "I am an individual".
On the Certification of No U.S. Activities page, I clicked on the checkbox next to the "I hereby certify that:" statement and selected the option "I provide services exclusively from outside of the United States". Furthermore, I typed my full name in the "Certified By" field and then clicked on the Certify button.
On the Identification of Beneficial Owner page of the Tax Form, in the Tax Payer Identification section, I selected Tax Number from the Type of Foreign Tax Identification Number (FTIN) drop-down and provided a Tax Identification Number* to avoid the problem with the acceptance of the tax form which leads to the payout delay or in some cases to a 30% withholding tax. When the Claim of Tax Treaty Benefits popup showed up, I clicked on the Continue button.
The last step of the Tax Form submission consisted of verifying that the data I entered before was valid and that I read and acknowledged the certification. I needed to make sure that I selected all the checkboxes relevant to me. In the end, I needed to type my full name one more time in the Certified By field and complete submitting a Tax Form.
*Tax Identification Number is provided by your local tax authorities. Please, contact your Tax Advisor for more information on your local tax law.
To update the Tax Form with new data, I needed to submit a new Tax Form which will replace the one I already submitted.