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I do have a freelancer account and an agency account on oDesk for a real company. I'd like to apply to a job on the behalf of the agency account. To get paid, tax information is required.

The company (a real one) is based in Hong Kong.

oDesk asks me to fill in the W-8BEN form, which is for individuals, not companies (should be W-8BEN-E).

oDesk says that they want the owner of the company to fill the individual tax form.

I did email oDesk support. They answered me with copy of their policy rules and a comment asking me to fill in the tax form for individuals and that they don't care about agencies.

A few months ago, there was no different tax forms for individual and business, I think their support has no answer to give.

I do not want to be charged on my individual taxes as I own an agency and am taxed through them. How do I keep my individual taxes out of this and still work as an agency on oDesk?

Thierry Bonnechere
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    This question appears to be off-topic because it is about odesk policy and rules which should be directed to oDesk support team. We here can only give false information. – Peter MV Sep 01 '14 at 12:05
  • I did email the oDesk support. They answered me a copy of their policy rule and a comment to say to fill in the tax form for individual and that they don't care about agencies. I'd like to know how agencies make it ? – Thierry Bonnechere Sep 02 '14 at 07:36
  • Hey Thierry, did you explain to them the situation that you're a business? You might want to email them again, as they're really a better option for this kind of question. – jmort253 Sep 02 '14 at 07:36
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    If you email them and get back another canned response, feel free to [edit] into your post that you tried contacting them, what their response was, and we might be able to possibly make this question fit our site guidelines. Hope this helps. – jmort253 Sep 02 '14 at 07:37
  • I did. I think since there was no different tax form between individual and business few months ago, they're not up to date. – Thierry Bonnechere Sep 02 '14 at 07:39
  • Ok I've edited the post – Thierry Bonnechere Sep 02 '14 at 07:43
  • I'm not entirely sure that this is a good fit for our site, but I also think it's a freelancing problem, and if oDesk isn't able to answer this, then I think it's worth a shot. I'll reopen for answers. – jmort253 Sep 02 '14 at 07:48
  • Thierry, I edited again to make it more clear. Can you take a look and make sure I didn't mess up any facts? For instance, do you work for the agency or do you own the agency? (ex: Are you the owner of the business or are you a freelance contractor to the business?) Thanks! – jmort253 Sep 02 '14 at 07:52
  • Thank you, it is more clear. I own the agency, I edit the post. – Thierry Bonnechere Sep 03 '14 at 08:38

1 Answers1

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Use the form that they're providing. This advisory says you can use that form until the end of the year.

IRS Advisory

Xavier J
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