October 16, 2025
Dear Fellow Creators, Journalists, Newsletter Writers, and Everyone Making Money Online,
I'm writing this letter as a warning that could save you from financial ruin. If you're selling subscriptions, newsletters, or any digital content online through Substack, WordPress, Ghost, Beehiiv, ConvertKit, or similar platforms, you are likely breaking tax laws in dozens of countries right now without knowing it.
This isn't hyperbole. This is happening to me and hundreds of thousands of creators as you read this.
Here's what no platform will tell you:
The moment someone in the UK subscribes to your $5 newsletter, you legally owe 20% VAT to the British government.
When someone in Germany buys your content, you owe 19% to Germany.
One subscriber in India? You need to register for GST.
One sale to Australia? You owe them 10% GST.
Unlike selling physical products where you often need $75,000+ in sales before tax obligations kick in, digital services have ZERO thresholds in most countries. One $5 sale = immediate tax liability.
Every major creator platform—Substack, WordPress.com, Ghost, Beehiiv, ConvertKit—uses Stripe exclusively for payments. Stripe collects these international taxes from your customers. You see them on your dashboard. You might think, "Great, Stripe is handling the taxes!"
They're not.
Stripe collects the tax but doesn't send it to any government. That's your job. You're supposed to:
- Register as a business in 50+ countries
- File tax returns in each country (monthly or quarterly)
- Navigate forms in foreign languages
- Remit taxes in foreign currencies
- Keep compliant records for each jurisdiction
Nobody told you this, did they?
I'm a creator in Illinois with a modest newsletter. Nothing fancy—just sharing my expertise with a few hundred subscribers. Last month, I discovered I've triggered tax obligations in 25+ countries from just a handful of international subscribers.
My options:
- Ignore it and risk criminal tax evasion charges, penalties up to 30% of revenue, and potential prosecution
- Comply by hiring tax professionals in 25 countries (estimated cost: $20,000+/year)
- Use Taxually (Stripe's partner) at $7,500+/month for full compliance
- Shut down my newsletter
My newsletter makes $2,000/month. The compliance costs would be 4x my revenue.
Here's what I've uncovered:
The Monopoly: Every major platform blocks alternative payment processors like Paddle or LemonSqueezy that would handle taxes as "Merchant of Record"—meaning they'd deal with all this instead of you.
The Lock-in: You can't switch processors. You can't limit sales by country. You're forced into Stripe, forced to sell globally, and forced into non-compliance.
The Profit Motive: Stripe makes billions processing creator payments. Their partner Taxually charges astronomical fees for tax compliance. Platforms take 10-20% cuts. Everyone profits except creators.
The Scale: Conservative estimates suggest 100,000+ U.S. creators are unknowingly non-compliant, with collective tax liabilities exceeding $1 billion.
If you're a teacher in Wisconsin selling lesson plans online—you're likely a tax evader in 30 countries.
If you're a fitness instructor in California with online subscribers—you probably owe taxes you've never collected.
If you're a retired journalist on Substack with readers worldwide—you're non-compliant.
If you're literally anyone selling digital content globally through these platforms—you're in this trap.
The creator economy promised independence. "Be your own boss!" "Monetize your passion!" "Build your audience!"
What they didn't tell us: We'd become accidental international tax criminals, facing impossible compliance costs that make the whole enterprise a net loss.
While Silicon Valley platforms and payment processors make billions from our content, we're left holding the bag for taxes we didn't know existed, can't afford to pay, and can't afford to comply with.
- Check your Stripe dashboard immediately for international sales
- Document everything about your tax situation
- Consider pausing international sales if possible (spoiler: most platforms won't let you)
- Speak up - share this letter, contact journalists, alert other creators
- Contact your representatives - this needs regulatory attention
- Stop blocking merchant-of-record payment alternatives
- Add country filtering so creators can limit their tax exposure
- Provide clear warnings about international tax obligations
- Offer affordable solutions not $7,500/month compliance tools
- Investigate the payment processor monopoly in creator platforms
- Examine whether this constitutes deceptive business practices
- Protect American creators from impossible compliance burdens
- Modernize tax treaties for the digital age
- Investigate this crisis affecting millions
- Expose the systematic blocking of tax-compliant alternatives
- Interview creators facing financial ruin
- Question why every platform has identical Stripe-only policies
Q4 2025 tax deadlines are approaching. January 2026 filing requirements loom. Every day we wait, more creators accumulate tax liabilities they can't pay and didn't know existed.
This isn't about tax avoidance—we want to comply. But when compliance costs more than our entire revenue, when platforms trap us in impossible situations, when payment processors profit from our predicament—something is fundamentally broken.
Share this letter. Every creator needs to know.
Demand change. Platforms must offer merchant-of-record options.
Support each other. We're all in this together.
Document everything. We may need evidence for the reckoning that's coming.
The creator economy is at a crossroads. Either we fix this now, or millions of independent creators will be forced to choose between bankruptcy and criminality.
I never thought my small newsletter would make me an international tax evader. But here we are. And if you're reading this as a creator, you're probably in the same boat.
It's time to sound the alarm before it's too late.
Signed,
Henrique Bucher
A Creator in Crisis
Illinois, USA
Log into your payment dashboard right now. Look for international sales. Count the countries. Multiply by the compliance cost. Then ask yourself: Why didn't anyone warn us?
If you subscribe to any online content from independent creators, know this: Your favorite writers, educators, and content creators might disappear not because they failed, but because success in the global digital economy has become a trap that enriches Big Tech while destroying individual creators.
Please share this letter. Copy it. Republish it. Translate it. Get it to every creator you know. The only way out of this trap is if we all realize we're in it.
#CreatorTaxCrisis #DigitalTaxTrap #SaveCreators #PaymentMonopoly