W8 - Fill Online, Printable, Fillable, Blank

Who needs Form W-8?

W-8 is the Us Internal Revenue Service for, that is officially called Certificate of Foreign Status. The filer is a nonresident alien individual,a foreign entity or an exempt foreign person who is not subject to some kind of rules for U.S. information return reporting or backup withholding.

What is the Certificate of Foreign Status form for?

The nonresident alien individuals must fill out the W-8 to inform the payer, mortgage interest recipient, middlemen, broker, or barter exchange of the nonresident or exemption status.

Is the W-8 accompanied by any other documents?

There is no need to attach any other documents to the filled out W-8. However, to submit the Certificate form foreign persons who receive income from a business operating in the US must obtain a TIN. It can be requested via forms SS-4 or SS-5, they can be taken at local IRS office or local SSA office correspondingly.

The withholding agent must file form 1042S. Further, forms W-8 and 1042S are to accompany form 1042, which is Annual Withholding Tax Return for U.S. Source Income of Foreign Persons.

When is the W-8 form due?

It is important to submit the completed Certificate of Foreign Status before nonresident alien individual makes the payment. The W-8 form should remain in effect for three years.

How to fill out the W-8 form?

The W-8 form is a two-page form, the bigger part of which is the comprehensive instruction to follow.

The following information is required in order to file the Certificate of Foreign Status:

The owner’s name and permanent address;
Information about the owner’s account;
The alien’s certification.

Where to send the completed W-8 form?

The filer must deliver the completed W-8 to the payer of the qualifying income who acts as the withholding agent. It is important that the filer retains a copy of the W-8 for their private records.

Today we're going to talk about IRS Form w8 then certificate of foreign status of beneficial owner for United States withholding and reporting for individuals the primary purpose of Form w8 been is to establish that an individual is a foreign person that is not a u.s. person it is a relatively short form only one page long although the primary purpose of the form is to certify the foreign status of the individual the form can also be used to claim treaty benefits in part to w8 Ben should only be used for individuals and not for entities entities must fill out w8 Ben II as shown here and as shown here the term beneficial owner essentially means the owner of the income being received and that that person is not a nominee or an intermediary the terminology can get a little confusing because the person making the payment usually has a deductible expense and does not have income however it is income to the foreign recipient or the foreign beneficial owner the u.s. imposes a 30 percent withholding tax on certain types of payments of US sourced income to foreign persons the payor of the income is obligated to withhold u.s. tax unless an exception applies the payor is referred to as a withholding agent because the payor may need to withhold u.s. tax the typical types of income that are subject to the withholding tax include dividends interest rents royalties and compensation for services however it is important to remember that it is only us source income that is subject to the 30% withholding tax in particular with regard to services if the payment is being made for services that take place entirely outside the US then the income is not considered us source income and the 30% withholding tax simply does not apply however it gets much more complicated if any of the services are performed in the US these withholding rules can get a little tricky however because you may be making a payment to an individual outside the US that happens to be a US citizen for payments to u.s. citizens you are typically required to send them a 1099 reporting the payment to the IRS in that case you ask the recipient for a form w-9 and forum w8 and then on the form w-9 they certify that they are a u.s. person and they provide their US taxpayer identification number so that you can file the form 1099 payments to US persons can be subject to a 28 percent backup withholding if they don't provide their US taxpayer identification numbers so it is important to understand that payments to US persons and payments to non-us persons can both be subject to potential withholding tax so how do you determine if an individual is a foreign person well you ask them to fill out a form w8 Ben where they sign certifying at the bottom they certify that they are not a US person if a person files form w8 Ben's certifying that they're not a US person and the circumstances change then the beneficial owner needs to notify the withholding agent within 30 days of the change in circumstances for example if...

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