The other day most creators logged onto their OnlyFans account to find they have a request to update their W9s. This isn’t uncommon and actually is something that most US companies should be doing each year.
As an affiliate, I’ve had to fill them out and re-fill them out yearly for companies like Penthouse, Cherry Pimps, and Vivid Video.
It’s annoying, I know. But it is something the IRS requires and no company can get around the regulations of the US government – OnlyFans included.
So what’s the big deal and why is it taking so long?
Well, some people might not realize this but those W9s are verified against a government database so if you submit false information, either on purpose or accidentally it gets rejected.
Sometimes you didn’t even mean to submit wrong information but it still gets rejected. Why? Well, it could be something as simple as the spelling of your name.
Let’s say your name is Jane Doe but last year you filed taxes as Jane Smith because Smith is your maiden name, but now that you are married to John Doe, you file taxes together as Jane Doe. You are telling the truth, but the IRS verification process can be tedious and buggy. So when it goes to verify you, it looks for information from your taxes last year – or the last time you actually filed them.
So while legally your name may now be Jane Doe, you should be filling out your W9 based on the name used on the taxes that you filed last and in this case that would be Jane Smith.
That is if you want to save yourself lots of annoying hassles and going back and forth.
After you file your taxes this year, using your new married name you can request to update your W9 with companies using your new married name, but for now to avoid verification errors and problems of the kind, just use the names and information from your previously filed taxes.
If your W9 fails the IRS verification process it could mean a delay in getting paid because their accounting department now has to get back with you and find out what the problem is.
This is not something that OnlyFans is doing to screw with you. This is a problem every company has. It’s just most people don’t see or hear about it because well, really until now, no single company has dealt with so many porn stars at once.
But we in the affiliate world have gone through these issues for years and I can’t tell you how annoying it is.
I’ve had to submit my W9 to Cherry Pimps 3 times last year to try and get paid. It took forever and just when I finally got everything worked out, a new year is upon us and I have to go through the hassle all over again.
Many have wrongly assumed that OnlyFans is trying to pull a fast one or purposely withholding their money. That isn’t the case. It really just is a thing that all businesses in the US have to deal with.
The government forces them to have certain paperwork on each and every one of us that do business with them. They then require that that information is accurate – sadly a few too many people try and submit fake information to try and get away with not paying taxes.
The bigger a company is, the more scrutiny they must face from the IRS.
So basically they are doing what the US government requires of them. They are getting updating tax records from every one of their creators and then submitting them for verification, one by one.
It could take a few hours or a few days to complete the process and when that process is completed, all payouts should resume as normal – until next year when we get to do this all over again.
9 Responses
Actually, there is no reason to update a W-9 unless something changes. Most porn performer LLCs are single person and disregarded for tax purposes so that shouldn’t even trigger the need to re-submit this form. If you do need to submit or re-submit your W-9 somewhere, here is the link to the IRS website’s W-9: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw9.pdf . If for some reason you need to update your W-9s, you probably need to update your W-4s (withholding and social security number form) with porn companies that pay via payroll as well. Here is that form: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw4.pdf . Theoretically you should be able to use your LLC (if you have one) and file a W-9 with any porn industry employer but I can imagine that a few won’t allow it because they don’t understand the process and insist on paying via payroll (especially with AB5 taking effect this month/January 2020). I would expect problems using your LLC instead of your natural person with the larger porn companies that have paid via payroll for years, not independent directors and smaller companies that are being forced to change from paying as independent contractors to paying via payroll. Of course there are a few producers that are illegally requiring you to be an LLC to work for them, I expect that won’t last long although one performer that has been an LLC for years (I don’t want to give a name although producers probably know who I am talking about because before AB5 there were about two performers that were an LLC and used it for porn jobs) told me that she saves thousands in tax payments every year being an LLC. Depending on your situation, it might for you as well but speak to a qualified CPA on this subject.
Well yes and no. For the most part you are right but (and again I don’t work for the company this is just what I’m hearing) but for what I hear the company is under new ownership and the previous owners might have been a little slack in recording keeping since they weren’t based out of the US and well the easiest way to handle is to require all US creators to submit a valid / verifiable w9.
Some people ask us to update W9s periodically, some don’t. When we’re prompted, we do, but usually it’s through some sort of direct reach out.
That being said: We didn’t receive our Dec ’19 referral payout and when reaching out to OF, they said “your minimum wasn’t reached” (we had….We’ll just call it a “considerable sum” owed to us), which obviously wasn’t the case.
Once we brought that up to support, there was zero response. We expect to get the full amount for both Dec and Jan released in Feb. If not……Well, that sucks to say the least, and it’s also shady as fuck.
Had it been due to not submitting a new W9 (something OF has never required since we started promoting them) support should have stated that was the reason.
@Kelli by “New Ownership”, we talking MFC or is there something new we don’t know about?
Kelli, I am surprised they took W-9’s at all since they were a foreign employer. Theoretically if you actually do the work in the US they are supposed to but who is going to enforce it in Cyprus or whatever the fucking country is? When I did jobs outside of the US I submitted the appropriate country’s W-9 or W-4 equivalent and US taxes were not withheld. The income was still taxable (US citizens are taxed on worldwide income which isn’t the case in most countries, there is a deduction for income attributable to foreign countries but after that, it is taxable here in the US as well) but I had to take care of that via a quarterly tax payment here in the States if I went over the foreign income deduction.
Doesn’t matter what country you are in. If you are doing business in the US with US citizens, you have to comply with US tax laws.
If the work is done in the US, then the company is supposed to file any necessary paperwork to facilitate US taxation. However, as I said, who is going to enforce it on a company in some second world country like Cyprus (where there is a large porn company’s main office now) — US tax enforcement doesn’t have jurisdiction there and the President isn’t going to bomb Cyprus over a few porn performers taxes to enforce the law.
Paying taxes is for suckers. Does the POTUS pay?
The POTUS does pay tax on his legal income but the billions he is getting in under the table, illegal bribes aren’t likely reported or taxed. You don’t think the Huawei bit was over China, do you? Trump is a pay to play President and Huawei wouldn’t pay the billion dollars in bribes to Trump that are required for large international companies to do business here nowadays.