If you’re thinking about starting an online business, or if you’ve invested in a work-from-home program, you still have to make sure you’re taking care of the usual legal business requirements pertaining to your country and that means doing your tax.
In just about every nation on Earth (save for a few special instances like the tiny tax-free nation of Brunei), you’re going to have to inform the government about your earnings in order for them to tax you.
Even when you work an online-based business — where in a lot of cases your earnings will be deposited right into your account — it’s very easy for the government not to pick up on this, unless you get audited down the road.
I’ve been working online for around 7 years now and in that time I’ve met countless people who are not only not paying tax while operating a home-based business, but are actually proud of the fact they’re not paying tax at all. While this may sound great to some, this can be a dangerous act.
The thing is that if you — or anyone else dodging tax — is caught, severe punishments can be dealt to you, which may include imprisonment in many nations.
When running or operating a home based business, you must ensure that declaring and paying tax is on your list of priorities. In some countries tax can be as high as 60% or more, though I’d still rather pay this much than spend time in prison.
Without doing anything illegal, there are alwasy ways to reduce your tax whether it be claiming reductions, hiring a great accountant or even moving country to pay a lower rate of tax. While you will still have to pay something, I’d still recommend you do this than avoid paying it at all.
In the end the choice is yours, however if you are caught for tax evasion when running your own home-based operation, don’t say I didn’t warn you!