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Pussycat, pussycat, where have you been?
Well, yes, down to London, but not, in fact, to see her Maj. Instead, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
josephine_myles and I went down to the US Embassy, to see if we could get ourselves some of those new-fangled US tax numbers all the cool kids are wearing these days.
We could, it has to be said, have picked our day better. First, we had to negotiate airport-style security (josephine_myles being forced to drink out of her almost-empty water bottle to prove that it wasn't a highly volatile explosive cunningly masquerading as Highland Spring; josephine_myles having to remove her deadly ninja hair clip before being allowed through; me standing there smugly going "there's always one"). I particularly appreciated the cartoon-style "No bombs" illustration on the door, for the benefit of those persons who might have thought the US embassy positively welcomed explosives. Then, we had to wait around 2 hours to see the IRS guy, the embassy apparently being short-staffed today. On the other hand, we could have picked our day worse: yesterday, they weren't even open, a fact I don't recall having been mentioned on the website...
Still, we had plenty of time to chat (what the other people waiting thought of our talk of m/m romance and fandom I can't imagine) and eventually reached the head of the queue, to have IRS guy scribble on our forms in impenetrable scrawl and regale us with tales of his youthful sci-fi writing exploits (I probably imagined the implication that he'd grown out of it).
So now we just sit back and wait for a few months, and hopefully become official persons in the eyes of the US tax authorities!
josephine_myles and I went down to the US Embassy, to see if we could get ourselves some of those new-fangled US tax numbers all the cool kids are wearing these days.We could, it has to be said, have picked our day better. First, we had to negotiate airport-style security (
josephine_myles being forced to drink out of her almost-empty water bottle to prove that it wasn't a highly volatile explosive cunningly masquerading as Highland Spring; josephine_myles having to remove her deadly ninja hair clip before being allowed through; me standing there smugly going "there's always one"). I particularly appreciated the cartoon-style "No bombs" illustration on the door, for the benefit of those persons who might have thought the US embassy positively welcomed explosives. Then, we had to wait around 2 hours to see the IRS guy, the embassy apparently being short-staffed today. On the other hand, we could have picked our day worse: yesterday, they weren't even open, a fact I don't recall having been mentioned on the website...Still, we had plenty of time to chat (what the other people waiting thought of our talk of m/m romance and fandom I can't imagine) and eventually reached the head of the queue, to have IRS guy scribble on our forms in impenetrable scrawl and regale us with tales of his youthful sci-fi writing exploits (I probably imagined the implication that he'd grown out of it).
So now we just sit back and wait for a few months, and hopefully become official persons in the eyes of the US tax authorities!
no subject
The US tax number, basically, is so that you DON'T have to pay US tax on your royalties - otherwise some, but not all, publishers will deduct 30% before they pay you.
As others have explained it WAY better than I could, I'll link you to this comment on