The Pit of Misinformation

Last week I was doing some research for a pretty obscure international tax issue for one of our online business clients. I knew the answer, but I was looking for a reference I could send to the client.

Everything I was finding gave the wrong answer. And I mean EVERYTHING.

A lot of them were written by non-tax experts (people selling Amazon courses, forums, etc.) But even articles written by CPAs who were TRYING to cite the Internal Revenue Code completely misinterpreted the sections they were citing.

Eventually I did find the appropriate references and case law – along with some excellent articles written by tax attorneys familiar with the space.

But it took a lot of digging and that was with me knowing what I was looking for. If I were the average user (or even the average ACCOUNTANT), I would have listened to the misinformation that constitutes 95% of the information available.

If I’ve said it once I’ve said it a million times: only work with people who are true experts in your industry.

Taxes for online businesses are far too complex, nuanced, and varied to trust what your run of the mill CPA is telling you.