Harmonist11
patreon
IMPORTANT POLL AND UPDATE
🕑 Added 2022-12-05 17:17:38 +0000 UTCUPDATE: Added more specifics to payment options regarding SubscribeStar and Gumroad above the poll.
Hey all. I don't post updates on Patreon often, but when I do, it's usually something important. This is such a case. It's a bit of a lengthy read, but not urgent, so take your time. Everything below, in addition to holidays, is going to affect my schedule for December though and will likely eat into some of my work time, meaning that the art quota for this month is probably going to be lower than average. I'll try and get around 3-4 works done though, at least.
Some of you might already be aware, but I'm using a special billing service to work under, which basically takes in the money I make, handles filing it, taxes, etc, then sends me the rest as salary. Roughly translated this is called being a "light entrepreneur", as I don't have to establish a business, and I don't need to do bookkeeping myself.
Last week I received an email from the service stating that starting from January, tax authorities no longer allow services like this to handle payments by proxy. For example, my payouts from Patreon would have to go straight from Patreon to this service's bank account. I can't receive the money myself and then transfer it to the service, which is how I've handled funds from Patreon and SubscribeStar. AFAIK, Patreon does not offer direct bank transfers for payouts. They have Payoneer as an option, but I believe the money goes through a Payoneer account in that case, which wouldn't work.
Before you panic thinking I'm going to have to stop using Patreon, that would only be the worst case scenario. (Please don't make any changes to your memberships or any other knee-jerk reactions like that yet.) However, I'm going to have to be prepared for that too, which I will get into shortly, but first, the alternative.
I'm going to look into the option of actually establishing a business name and getting an accountant. This way I should be able to keep going as usual. The billing service I use already takes a cut from my income, which could go towards paying for accounting instead as well, so financially this shouldn't affect me much. If anything, I might even make more money by doing this, in exchange for a bit more paperwork here and there. It might be beneficial for me to make this change even without this situation.
However, I want to be prepared for any unforeseen issues with the above choice. The worst case scenario is that I'll need to keep using the billing service for the time being but would have to stop using Patreon. Gumroad and SubscribeStar both offer bank transfers as payout options, so I should be able to keep using those.
WORST CASE SCENARIO
Again, don't panic yet. The following is just research I need to conduct while I look into my options.
So... IF I'd have to shut down my Patreon, but could keep using Gumroad and SubscribeStar, would you be ready and willing to switch to one of these two services?
Both SubscribeStar and Gumroad offer:
- Subscriptions (I'd keep the prices the same)
- Content delivery via messages and/or the site (not doing so with subs on Gumroad yet, but can be established)
- Access to my Discord server
- Similar payment options as Patreon (Except if you've been able to pay with PayPal on Patreon though, then that is not currently available on these sites. Credit cards and some debit cards should work.)
Gumroad also offers buying monthly content as archives.
Please note that it is extremely important that you answer the following poll accurately. I need to have a solid idea of the percentage of people willing to go for these choices. Not just for this worst case scenario, but for any future problems I could have with running on Patreon.
HYPOTHETICAL WORST CASE SCENARIO - CAN'T USE PATREON ANYMORE. WHAT WOULD YOU DO?
Comments
I choose gumroad subscription because Ive already bought some archives there , but I remember gumroad have some catch regards taxes depending where you card is emitted
Harmonist11
Credit cards are usually the default payment options for sites like these. If anything, they're less likely to have other options.
Thaois Ghoirt
I've choosen "either SubscribeStar or Gumroad", but this is conditional on them accepting credit card. I don't know if this is true.
