Affiliate tax guide for United States

Disclaimer: This is not intended to be definitive guide. Please consult your accountant or legal team for more information on this subject

For merchants

Merchants are required to file Form-1099-Misc with the IRS for all affiliates registered as US Taxpayers, whose total payments in a financial year are more than $600. FORM-1099 is a physical form which needs to be bought from IRS and needs to be filled and signed by hand.

To fill and submit the Form-1099-Misc you need to collect Form W-9 from the affiliates. Form w-9 is just a taxpayer identification form and is only used for collecting affiliate's tax details to later fill the form-1099-misc. The w-9 form itself is not required to be submitted with the IRS

To collect form w-9 from the affiliates, you can turn on the Form-w9 functionality in the Settings -> Extras tab. Once enabled, your affiliates can fill this form, online, in their dashboard -> settings tab

Once they have filled the form, a PDF is generated and sent to you (as well as the affiliate). The generated PDF can also be downloaded from the Affiliate Files option in the app sidebar

Merchants, do not have to withhold tax/payments from the affiliates. They only have to ensure that for the eligible affiliates, they have collected w-9 form for 1099-misc form filing

Summary:

Requirements for W-9 and 1099-misc ?

• Affiliate whose annual payments > $600
• Affiliate is a US taxpayer or US business entity

Who fills what ?

• Form W-9 is to be filled by Affiliate
• Form 1099-Misc is to be filled by Merchant (one form per affiliate where aforementioned requirements are met)

How to fill the forms ?

• Form W-9 can be filled online by the affiliates in their dashboard
• Form 1099-Misc needs to BOUGHT and then filled by merchant and then sent to the IRS (along with their business tax returns)

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For affiliates

Affiliates only need to fill form w-9 in the settings tab of their dashboard. No separate action is required for their affiliate income.