Google to tax Indian YouTubers for US views

Tech giant Google has announced in an official email that content creators on YouTube will now have to pay taxes on any views they acquire from the United States of America via advertisements. The tax deduction is speculated to start as early as this May.

While American YouTubers will remain unaffected, international content creators will have to provide relevant tax information to Google via their AdSense platform. The company clarified that the creators "won't have to pay tax for the money [they] make from viewers outside the US if [they] provide relevant tax documents."

Failing this, a net deduction of 24% will be enforced on their monthly earnings. If relevant information is submitted and a treaty benefit applies, the company will claim 15% tax on monthly earnings from US viewers. However, if no treaty benefit applies then it will claim 30% of the profits.

Indian content creators will benefit from the tax treaty with the US which reduces the claim to 15% of tax on US viewers.

"If tax forms aren't provided, your tax rate will default to 24% of your total earnings for individual account types (this the account type for a majority of creators) even if you only have a small percentage of revenue from U.S. viewers," Google warned in its statement.