YouTube Content Creators to Pay Taxes to U.S Government Starting June

Kenyan YouTube content creators, as well as others across the world, will start paying taxes to the United States government starting June this year.

According to Parent Firm Google, content creators outside the US will face tax deductions on their AdSense earnings. AdSense is a free and simple program that allows Google to pay you for ads displayed on your site. This is usually based on ad impressions and ad clicks depending on the type of ad. The tax deduction will affect revenue earned from US viewers through super tickets, YouTube Premium, Channel Memberships, Super Chat and advertisement views.

“Over the next few weeks, we’ll be asking you to submit your tax info in AdSense to determine the correct amount of taxes to deduct, if any apply. If your tax info isn’t provided by May 31, 2021, Google May be required to deduct up to 24% of your total earnings worldwide, said the tech giant.

According to the tech firm, Google has a responsibility under chapter 3 of the US Internal Revenue Code to collect tax info from all monetizing creators outside of the US. It also has a responsibility to deduct taxes in certain instances when they earn income from viewers in the US.

All this has come after The Income Tax (Digital Service Tax), 2020 took effect in January. The Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) is trying to attract more taxpayers into its net. This includes businesses and persons selling goods and services.

By Lilian Waeni