taxing plonkee

Those of you who have been reading my blog for a little while may have noticed that I've added some adverts to the site. They're adsense ads from Google, and I don't think that they detract too much.

When you sign up for adsense you have to make a declaration regarding tax. As Google is a US company, this is declaration concerns US Federal Tax. As a non-resident of the US without any business interests in the States, the declaration that I made basically means that any earnings from adsense will not be reported to the IRS. Of course, for me, this is a good and logical thing as I can see no reason why I should pay income tax to a country with which I have no connection other than the location of my debtor and hosting server. I'm glad that the IRS agree with my position as in general tax authorities can be a law unto themselves.

However, I think that this means that I will need to file a tax return to HMRCS for this financial year. Some web advice on Ebay sellers suggested that if the amount earned is not much then its probably ok to put it down as casual earnings. On the other hand if it gets to be a more substantial amount (unlikely but plausible) then I'd need to register as self-employed. I think I might need to contact the tax men (or women) themselves to find out for sure. In any case, I plan to save at least half the earnings in a high interest account and keep proper records to ensure that I don't get in any trouble.

Aah the joys of generating additional income.