Tutors and Tax Obligations

  • Thread Starter nousernamejustaquestion
  • Start date
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nousernamejustaquestion

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Jurisdiction
Illinois
I'm an individual - not a business or company (which may mean that this question is in the wrong forum). I was thinking about hiring a language tutor through the website italki. I would make payments to italki and then one of their tutors would meet with me online for 1 hour per week to practice language. italki is based in Hong Khong and I live in the United States. Is there any US tax obligation that I incur from doing business with italki (I've read some sites that say "businesses" need to withhold 30% of all transactions with foreign vendors, other sites say that the tutor would be considered my "household employee" and I need to withhold Medicare/SocialSecurity/FICA (even though they don't live in the US)? Do you know if there is anything specific with doing business with Hong Khong that is problematic? Or what US taxes apply to this situation? Thanks.
 
Hiring a tutor is no different than "hiring" your doctor. Neither the tutor nor your doctor are your employees so there are no tax issues.

You pay the tutoring company for the services of their employee, you get a receipt or an invoice, or pay by credit card or check, whatever.

Beyond that, I would caution you about paying foreign websites by credit card (or giving them any bank information) unless you use B of A's Shopsafe or Citicard's virtual credit cards. Those two services give you a pseudo-credit card number that you can set for one time use for a limit.

That way if, say, it's $100 per session you limit the card to $100 and if you don't like the service they can't hit your credit card for any more money. If you do like the service you can just get a new number for each payment or increase the card limit to cover additional sessions one at a time.

Without that kind of service they can keep charging your credit card while you huff and puff and take months to get your bank to put a stop to it and reverse the charge.
 
Definition of shanghai
  1. a : to put aboard a ship by force often with the help of liquor or a drug. b : to put by force or threat of force into or as if into a place of detention

  2. : to put by trickery into an undesirable position
The word shanghai comes from the name of the Chinese city of Shanghai. People started to use the city's name for that unscrupulous way of obtaining sailors because the East was often a destination of ships that had kidnapped men onboard as crew.
 
adjusterjack said:
Definition of shanghai
  1. a : to put aboard a ship by force often with the help of liquor or a drug. b : to put by force or threat of force into or as if into a place of detention

  2. : to put by trickery into an undesirable position
The word shanghai comes from the name of the Chinese city of Shanghai. People started to use the city's name for that unscrupulous way of obtaining sailors because the East was often a destination of ships that had kidnapped men onboard as crew.
Click to expand...


Hmm, could one impute the location of an alleged business might be the way they conduct business?

I'm so slow.

I'm trying to improve my IQ.
 

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