How to report Patreon creator income to tax authorities (germany)

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Hi! I’m from Germany, I’m starting my 2020 income report for the Finanzamt and I have absolutely no idea about how to report my income to the tax authorities. Do you create an invoice for Patreon? If so, do you just create them for yourselves and the tax authorities? Because Patreon won’t get them… And also, what do you write under description of services rendered? Digital services? I’m completely lost. Any german creators out there who can help me out? At least I don’t have to pay VAT since I’m a Kleinunternehmer, but I need to report the income to pay taxes for it.
Thank you very much in advance!

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I am in Germany and I usually just print out the page for the payment from PayPal, the bank or wherever you received the money. It should show who is sending the money and from which country (important for VAT). If the provider also has a document for the payout in their interface or as email, I download that too.
“Invoice” doesn’t apply since Patreon sends the money without being officially charged by you. So it’s technically a “Gutschrift” in German. Ideally, you would get a Gutschrift document from Patreon, but unfortunately, US companies rarely give us in the EU such documents, since they aren’t required in the US.

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Ich gebe das einfach als nebenberufliche sonstige einkünfte an.

Umsatzsteuer musst du so wie so nicht zahlen, da dies bereits Patreon für dich abführt (obwohl du dies eigentlich gar nicht müsstest wegen der klein unternehmerregel).

Bei Apples Appstore ist das übrigens genauso. Einige schreiben da wohl eine spezielle Rechnung, um zu belgen das die UsT bereits erledigt ist.

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Actually the small company category does not apply to EU VAT regulations. See https://morethandigital.info/moss-verfahren-erklaert/.

  • Grundsätzlich gilt ein Schweizer Unternehmer in der EU nicht als Kleinunternehmer
  • Anders als in der Schweiz gilt in den meisten EU-Ländern der Kleinunternehmerstatus nur dann, wenn man im jeweiligen EU Land über eine feste Einrichtung verfügt – daher ist ein Schweizer Unternehmer auch dann in der EU Umsatzsteuerpflichtig, wenn er in der Schweiz Kleinunternehmer wäre.

(it’s about Switzerland, but the same goes for Germany)

But it doesn’t matter, since indeed Patreon already takes care of the VAT, so you need to declare your Patreon income as “Steuerfreie Einnahmen”.

Edit: It should be noted though, that often the rewards for a certain Patreon tier are not a digital service or product for which EU VAT would apply at all, but unfortunately currently Patreon provides no way around the charging of EU VAT, even though such settings have been added for US taxes.

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that’s what I ended up doing, hope it’s enough. thank you for your answer!

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@stger has the right answer!

I am located in the Netherlands and had to deal with this issue as well. I have contacted Patreon and they assured me that Patreon works through self-billing. Don’t know what that is? Let me explain.

You might think that you have customers who pay you through Patreon, but legally that is not what is happening. Patreon is your customer, and only Patreon. Patreon buys your work from you and then sells access to your work to other people. Those people pay Patreon, they don’t pay you directly. Hence, Patreon pays VAT on what it sells in the EU (and sales tax if they sell to people in the US). This VAT that is paid is not something you have to declare, as it is Patreon paying it and declaring it.

Your customer is Patreon and in fact, the Patreon US entity (at least, that is what Patreon support told me). Obviously, you don’t get to decide how much Patreon pays you for your work. Patreon decides that for you based on their sales. This is the “self-billing” part. Unfortunately, Patreon then doesn’t send you an actual bill. It is up to you to make the invoice and keep it for tax purposes.

Because you are located in the EU (like me), you should be able to make an invoice for the Patreon US entity with 0% VAT, because you are selling to another company that is outside the EU.

Just create an invoice every month with the amount that Patreon paid out to you and be sure to address the invoice to:

Patreon, Inc
600 Townsend Street, Suite 500 West
San Francisco, CA 94103
United States of America

Now you can declare the amount you invoiced as income for your company/self-employed and on any VAT declaration you can declare it as income from selling to a company outside the EU. VAT declarations vary greatly even within the EU, so I’m no help there when it comes to Germany. Maybe you don’t even need to declare it (you don’t in the Netherlands).

Thus, don’t bother declaring any VAT on what is sold by Patreon to your patrons, only declare the income and VAT you invoice to Patreon.

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Spot on.

Just write a “Pro Forma Rechnung” with the Patreon address + remark “steuerfrei gem. § 4 Nr. 1b UStG; § 6a UStG)” + another remark “Nicht im Inland steuerbare Leistung” - and that’s it. At least that is what my Steuerberater told me to do.

However, the best (and safest) course of action would be to consult your Steuerberater.

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