Seller's Home"Your account has important pending matters!" — Recently, many Amazon US sellers have received such a conspicuous message in their backend. Click to open and there is a noticeable reminder:
A new W - 8 tax form needs to be provided. Once the seller's form expires, your sales account will be temporarily suspended until you update your tax information.
At present, a large number of sellers have received this message successively. If the operation is not completed before this deadline, sellers will face serious consequences such as restricted account permissions, product removal from shelves, or even permanent account suspension.
01
Why does the "red light" suddenly come on at this moment?
This large - scale notification push is not without reason. Behind it is a new regulation implemented by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in the United States starting from 2025: In the past, only sellers with annual sales of more than $5,000 needed to file tax returns. Now, as long as it reaches $2,500, it needs to be declared. This also means that more small and medium - sized sellers are included in the tax declaration scope.
At this time, it is necessary to fill in the W - 8 tax form, which is also the reminder received by sellers in the backend "Provide a new W - 8 tax form". Many sellers' doubts lie in: Which form should I fill in? W - 8BEN or W - 8BEN - E?
W - 8BEN form: Applicable to non - US tax residents who register stores as individuals (or sole proprietors/natural persons).
W - 8BEN - E form: Applicable to non - US corporate sellers who register stores as companies or legal entities (such as domestic limited liability companies).
Simply put, the W - 8 form is mainly divided into two types: W - 8BEN and W - 8BEN - E. Individual sellers need to fill in the W - 8BEN form, while corporate sellers need to fill in the W - 8BEN - E form. Correspondingly, the W - 9 form filled in by local US sellers is not applicable to Chinese sellers.
Moreover, this form is not valid for life once filled in. The validity period of the W - 8 series form is three years from the date of submission, and it will expire on December 31 of the third calendar year. For example, the form submitted in 2022 will expire on December 31, 2025. At present, it is exactly the time node when these early - submitted forms are about to expire in large numbers, so the platform's automatic reminder mechanism is triggered.
There is only one and a half months left until the deadline of December 31, 2025. Sellers need to log in to the Amazon seller backend immediately to check the status of your tax information. If your W - 8 form has expired or is about to expire, please start preparing materials and complete the online submission immediately. The senior Amazon seller Min Ge gives the following advice:
Find the tax information entrance, open the backend settings, select account information, find tax information, click to enter, and then you can see the update button.
Fill in the basic tax classification, select "Business" for tax classification, be sure to select "No" for "Whether it is a US resident entity", and select "Company" for the beneficial owner - fill in these three options directly as required to avoid affecting the review due to wrong selection.
Fill in the organization name, which must be completely consistent with the company name on your business license, without more or less words or word changes; select "China" for the region, and then fill in the registered address and corresponding postal code on the company's business license below, and the address should be accurate to the door number to ensure consistency with the industrial and commercial information, otherwise it may not pass the review.
After all the information is filled in, click Save, and finally enter the pinyin of the legal representative's name (note that it is pinyin, not Chinese characters), and submit directly after confirmation. In this way, the update of tax information is completed!
Global tax compliance has become the lifeline of cross - border e - commerce, and sellers should not destroy their hard - won stores due to a momentary negligence. In addition, the peak season is approaching soon, and sellers also need to pay attention to some policy changes of Amazon at any time.
02
Amazon FBA Return and Resale Service Upgrade
Amazon launched the "Graded Resale" service for FBA sellers in 2021, and expanded this program to more categories this month and "added smarter features".
Amazon said that the FBA grading and resale program allows sellers to recover the value from customer returns that cannot be completed by allowing sellers to relist and sell products as second - hand goods instead of paying to remove inventory. After registration, Amazon will automatically evaluate the condition of customer returns that sellers cannot complete transactions for and create second - hand goods lists on behalf of sellers and register them. Sellers can set prices and manage this list like managing existing new and used goods.
It is understood that Amazon announced that the following categories are newly supported for this service:
Watches
Jewelry
Luggage
Shoes
Clothing
Amazon also said that they have changed the way this service operates, changing the product inclusion method from opt - out to opt - in: "Sellers no longer need to register the entire product catalog and exclude specific products, but can personally select up to 2,000 ASINs they want to include in the program."
For sellers, the direct benefit of graded resale is to reduce inventory disposal costs caused by returns and recover part of the funds, while retaining control over the pricing and management of second - hand listings. Experienced sellers suggest that you can start testing this program with products that have a high return rate but low brand sensitivity, and gradually explore a resale strategy suitable for your product line.
The peak season is coming soon, and sellers should always pay attention to tax and policy changes to avoid affecting peak - season sales.
The relevant information in this article is for reference only and is not used as the basis for investment decisions
