IRS Form W-8IMY and Supporting Documentation

If you are prompted to complete the IRS Form W-8IMY then you may be asked to provide additional documentation. When receiving U.S. sourced income, the W-8IMY will generally require additional supporting documentation in order to reduce your U.S. withholding tax rate.

If the Chapter 3 Intermediary Status claimed on Form W-8IMY is “withholding foreign partnership” or “withholding foreign trust”, no supporting documentation is required. To correctly claim these statuses, you must provide the “WP-EIN” or “WT-EIN” granted to you by the IRS.

For all other Chapter 3 Statuses, supporting documentation requirements are described below.

Nonqualified Intermediary (NQI), Nonwithholding Foreign Partnership, Simple Trust or Grantor Trust

If you wish to claim a reduction in the statutory rate of U.S. tax withholding applicable to U.S. source payments (30%), you must also provide:

  • Beneficial owner documentation
    • What this means: you must provide a U.S. tax form, such as a W-8BEN or W-9, for each ultimate beneficial owner. For example, agents generally must submit a U.S. tax form for each underlying owner that they represent. Similarly, partnerships generally must submit a U.S. tax form for each partner. A description of the U.S. tax forms and who should complete them is provided near the mailing address below.
  • Withholding statement (a template can be found here)
    • Note: If you are an intermediary who receives Royalty income and allocations are based on sales by author, you do not need to complete the “Allocation of Payments” column at this time.

Qualified Intermediary (QI)

A withholding statement is required if you meet one or more of the following conditions:

  • You are claiming a reduction in the statutory rate of U.S. tax withholding applicable to your U.S. source payments (30%),
  • You do not assume primary withholding responsibility for your beneficial owners, or
  • You do not assume primary Form 1099 reporting and backup withholding responsibility for any applicable non-exempt U.S. beneficial owners*

*You must also furnish IRS Form W-9 for each non-exempt U.S. beneficial owner in addition to the withholding statement if you meet this condition.

The withholding statement must:

  • Designate the accounts for which you are acting as a QI,
  • Designate the accounts for which you assume primary withholding responsibility, AND
  • Provide information regarding each withholding rate pool (per your agreement with the IRS, a withholding rate pool is broken down by income type (e.g. royalty or services), withholding rate, and exemption code). In addition, if you did not assume primary Form 1099 reporting and backup withholding responsibilities, the withholding statement should include payments allocable to each U.S. nonexempt recipient for whom you receive the payment.

The withholding tax statement must be updated as often as necessary to allow the withholding agent to withhold at the appropriate rate on each payment and correctly report to the IRS.

Below are the most common IRS forms that apply to beneficial owners. Please reference the IRS website for additional information.

IRS Form Applicable to:
W-8BEN Non-U.S. individuals claiming foreign status and/or treaty benefits
W-8BEN-E Non-U.S. non-individuals claiming foreign status and/or treaty benefits
W-8IMY Non-U.S. flow-through entities (partnerships, grantor trusts, and simple trusts) that are not claiming treaty benefits and non-U.S. agents acting as intermediaries
W-9 U.S. persons, including US citizens, US resident individuals, and US entities.

Once you have gathered all required documentation, please send your IRS Form W-8IMY and additional documentation to Amazon at:

Amazon
Attn: FinOps Tax
P.O. Box 80683
Seattle, WA 98108-0683
U.S.A.

To assist us with locating your account, please include the following information when sending your documentation to Amazon