Stuck at the Tax Setup - Generated W-8BEN-E incorrectly generated / some information cannot be filled

Hi,

the fab support team forwarded me here so I hope I’m in the correct place now - I’m currently trying to set up my Publisher profile for Fab (and later also for for the games store, but it looks like it is the same process/tax survey) using my Epic games account via https://publish.unrealengine.com/publishing-portal/onboarding/taxInfo .

But I’m stuck at the tax setup since the tax survey generates an incorrect W-8BEN-E form for my company according to my tax accountant. I own & represent an Austrian corporation, have a valid Austrian TIN and all services/development is done outside of the U.S.. I’ve asked my tax accountant to provide me a prefilled W-8BEN-E form so that I don’t make a mistake when filling out the form, but whatever I try I cannot get the same result form the tax survey - the differences are:

  • point 5 cannot be filled out, I’d need to select “Active NFFE”
  • point 14b can only partially filled, I’d also need to select “Company that meets the ownership and base erosion test”
  • point 15 (the most imporant one) if filled out by the tax survey to claim a “service income - 30 %” which I and my tax accountant understand as 30% tax withholding - but this is incorrect according to my tax accountant. There is a tax treaty between the U.S. and Austria (https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-trty/austria.pdf) and according to paragraph 7.1. it should be 0%
  • point 39 cannot be filled, but I’d need to tick it

I guess that point 5 & 39 might not be that important, but point 15 would be very important to me.

Is this a bug in the tax survey? Is there a way I can provide the correctly prefilled W-8BEN-E form from my tax accountant?

Many thanks in advance!

4 Likes

Hey there @BitAndArtGmbH

We’d love nothing more than to help you update your tax interview. Unfortunately, these forums are not designed to assist with that level of support. Please go to https://www.epicgames.com/help/en-US/c-Category_BillingSupport and submit a support case to our billing team, and they will be able to help you. Also, please provide them with a screenshot showing where you are being blocked.

Please let us know if you need additional support!

Many thanks for pointing me into the correct direction!
I’ve created a support case there now - I’m not sure if you have the possibility bring the feedback to the responsible team, but at least for me it is very confusing to find the correct support channel for tax interview related issues.

1 Like

I’m having the same issue. Did you find a solution?