Equuestriaan
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Why does CreateSpace ask for your social security number?
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Official Participant
Joined: Nov 6, 2008
Location: Haverford, PA
Posts: 30
Posted on:
Dec 9, 2009 – 18 33 |
My mom won’t let me do the createspace thing because it makes you give your social security number! Any idea why they ask for that?
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Because you are creating an account to sell books, and every time you sell a book they have to report the sale to the IRS so that the IRS knows who is not paying their taxes. All online sites that are not scams ALWAYS ask for your SSN. That’s how you can pick out a scam operation fast. (Though, a lot of scammer will ask for your SSN as well; but no legitimate place will ever NOT ask you for it either.)
As long as you are over 12 years of age and are bringing in an income, you have to report all your income to the IRS. Even if you do not earn enough to have to pay taxes, you still have to fill out the tax forms and send them in.
The IRS requires your SSN. Than they cross reference it with all registered businesses, that have you listed on their payroll, to make certain that you are not skipping out on reporting any of your earned income.
That’s why places like Amazon, Etsy, eBay, Suidoo, LuLu, CreareSpace, Associated Content, etc, ask for your SSN. Because you are selling a product on line, which means you are the owner of a home business, and these sites act as the middle man to collect pay from the buyer and give it to you the seller. They also keep a record of every sale and every penny they send you. Than in April they send all that information to the IRS.
That same April, you have to send your personal records to the IRS as well. The IRS checks to make sure that the info you sent matches the info the company sent.
In other words, if you sell books via CreateSpace and CreateSpace tells the IRS you sold those books, the IRS than knows that you will be sending in your tax forms. If you do not send those records in, the IRS uses the SSN to track you down, come to your house and put you (or your parents if you are under 18 years old) in jail for tax evasion.
(And even before CreateSpace tells them, the IRS already know you sold the book, because that is what an ISBN does – that’s why you can not legally sell a book in the USA without an ISBN on it – the IRS uses the ISBN to track book sales.)
CreateSpace is required by law to keep a record of the SSN of each of their authors, otherwise the IRS will shut them down.
In other words – it’s required by USA law, that every business has a record of each of their employees SSN for tax purposes, and by signing up with CreateSpace, you become a self employed freelancer who has hired CreatSpace to act as your middle man to collect money from your customers.
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