What a strange week its been. Where do I begin? There’s a form my publisher requires to be filled out each year in order to continue selling books (as they come from America). Mostly to confirm I’m a UK resident, it’s really only to ensure I shouldn’t be paying taxes to the USA. I filled it out as per normal as I do every year and noticed for the first time, that -30% was being deducted from my book royalties. Strange, I thought. Wonder what that’s for?
Digging into it a little deeper, my publisher informed me that since I hadn’t provided my unique UK Tax Reference number or filled out a specific section of the form, for the last 6 years they’d been deducting -30% of my book monthly royalties, withholding the amount to pass on to the American IRS!! Which really only should be done if I live and work in America.
So, after querying with the IRS, I’ve just found out that I’m entitled to a six year refund of the 30% previously deducted from royalty cheques! Effectively giving me a win-fall of 30% of ALL my books sales from the time I started writing in 2012! I just couldn’t believe such great news and now had it confirmed the refund will be dispatched this week!
I look forward to a short family holiday next year, perhaps in the sun….and the majority, a significant amount leftover will be donated to local Blantyre good causes in January or February 2018! (More on that next month). Despite my stupidity at not reading the small print all these years, I’m absolutely over the moon. Now THAT’s what I call a great Christmas present, a nice end to the year and of course strengthens payment royalties going forward! This doesn’t affect book prices which remain the same, although I’m looking at other publishers in 2018 for better quality.
P.S Lets face it, I’ll never be a rich man writing about a specific niche like ‘little old Blantyre’, so as you probably know, part of the sales from 2012-April 2014 went to charity. Then from April 2014 onwards, ALL of the sales went to 80 local good causes via my charity, ‘Blantyre Telegraph’. This is something I’ll commit to until the day I retire. December is shaping up to be a fantastic month with 57 units sold already and it’s only the 14th. Thank you again to everybody who has bought a book over the years.
Moral of the story….read the small print!