• Witholding tax: When payments are made from one country to another for royalties and dividends (i.e. sales that do not physically cross borders), tax is sometimes deducted at source and paid to the tax authorities in the country from which the payment is made. This is called witholding tax.

  • Witholding tax can be avoided or reduced if an appropriate residency certificate is supplied by Graphic News. Some countries have additional hurdles. For example in India, Graphic News Ltd has to be registered and have a PAN (Personal Account Number) for the witholding tax to be reduced to below 20%.

  • If witholding tax is deducted, Graphic News can deduct the tax witheld from the corporation tax that would otherwise be payable, providing they have is a suitable certificate of the tax deducted

  • Witholding tax is also avoided for online services, so when Graphic News has an online e-commerce platform, payments made online will not be subject to witholding tax.
Residency certificates: These need to be authorised by Graphic News’ corporation tax department. When countries have their own residency certificate forms (often in two languages) these have to be completed (usually in triplicate) for each customer. Residency letters can alternatively be supplied for countries without their own forms.

Some countries, such as Russia, require residency certificates to be Apostilised by the UK Foreign Office (to confirm that it is a genuine residency certificate).

Certificates of tax deducted: Tax witheld can be reclaimed/ deducted by Graphic News from the Corporation Tax they would otherwise pay if they have a certificate of tax deducted and the country in which the tax is deducted has a reciprocal tax agreement with the United Kingdom. Some countries have their own paperwork. For those countries that do not, Graphic News supplies a summary of payments made and tax witheld each financial year for signature by the Finance Director of company that has witheld tax. Graphic News may also require a declaration of intent to be signed by a company in advance if they intend to withold tax from payments made - giving the percentage retention and the payees tax code (which in the EU may be different from the VAT registration number).