Pre-Comic Update | Patreon Tax Stuff (Patreon)

Hey everyone 👋

I know I've been MIA lately, but I wanted to share with you all some stuff I'm going to be working on this week. We'll still have our monthly comic update post this upcoming Friday, but this post will be more like an outline some Patreon news and BKI content stuff to come.

So Patreon added some changes to the way they manage/charge for taxes and it made me realize I had really fallen behind on delivering additional content posts on here. In part, I hit a low point this past month and felt like the stuff I was creating wasn't anywhere as good as the comic itself (from short stories to script posts, etc.) So I took some time to re-evaluate what I wanted to create here. But after reading up on this, I know I've got to change.

Here's the video on the Patreon tax changes in case you're curious how it might affect you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvOtULx_cK0

____________________________________________________________________________________

So, in essence, this part is what stuck out to me:

Should sales tax apply to Patreon? Is supporting a creator on Patreon the same as making a purchase?
The way these new laws were written, if a patron is receiving benefits in exchange for their pledge, the pledge may be subject to sales tax, depending on what is considered taxable in the patron’s location. For example, many places have passed laws that make streaming content taxable with platforms like Netflix and Spotify in mind. So in those places, streaming video and audio are considered taxable.

If the patron is not receiving any benefits, the pledge is not taxable in most places. For example, any pledge where the patron didn’t select one of your tiers, and any amount of money added on top of the tier cost is not in most places taxable. One notable exception is the EU, where we are currently required to apply tax (VAT) to all pledges regardless of whether the patron is receiving any benefits. We are working with EU tax authorities to secure reductions and exemptions for support-based pledges in the future. 

Supporting a creator on Patreon can be similar to making a purchase if the patron is simply looking for a way to pay money for content or tangible items you’re offering. But many patrons are also motivated by the idea of supporting content/art they care about. Since most memberships include both motivations, the new advanced tax settings we’re launching soon will allow you to tell us how much supporting your work is a motivation for most of your patrons. That allows us to reduce sales tax for patrons in places where tax laws allow us to do so. 

____________________________________________________________________________________

So basically, the changes break down into two categories of pledges: supporters and consumers. Supporters are patrons who donate to a creator because they want to help them/their art grow. Consumers are patrons exchanging money for offerings/rewards/benefits (aka a physical tangible thing) offered on a creator's Patreon account. At least that's MY understanding of it.

Going into July, I fully plan to get back onto my Monthly Content Schedule, but in the meantime we have a few months of content backlog I owe. So my goal is to put those out throughout the coming month. From my records, it looks like I owe content from March through June. So today, I'll be making a list of those various content pieces to provide. I'll be posting a temporary content schedule later today to illustrate this timeline.

If you have any questions, feel free to comment on this post or message me privately. 

Thanks!

-J