VAT stands for Value Added Tax and is a tax on consumer expenditure. It is collected on taxable transactions such as delivery of goods, imports and moving goods between EU countries.
To the extent relevant for Merch, the VAT rate for apparel shipped to Germany is 19%. For apparels shipped to the UK, the VAT rate (except young children’s clothing) is 20 %.
VAT is charged to the buyer as a percentage of the price of the goods sold. In Europe, the purchase price is inclusive of VAT. But as explained in the Production and Distribution Schedule, we will not take taxes on the purchase price into account when calculating your royalty, but calculate the royalty on the net price (i.e., purchase price minus the applicable VAT).
We make monthly payments for Primamerch sales. For electronic payments, the currency of your payment is determined by your bank’s location. Provided your balance due exceeds the payment threshold, we will remit payment approximately 30 days after the end of the calendar month in which the product was shipped. For example, we would remit payment for products that shipped in April at the end of May, which is approximately 30 days after the end of April.
In the U.S., we pay by using electronic funds transfer (TRX), and we make payment when your balance due is more than $20.00.
Content creators with banks in supported countries can receive electronic payments from Primamerch. Depending on your bank’s location, you may be eligible for either direct deposit or wire payments. At this time, we do not support sending checks. From the "Your Account" menu in the upper right of this page you can select "Manage your account" and then visit the payment and banking section to see if the country your bank is located in is supported at this time.
Prior to Primamerch issuing a payment, the payment must meet the applicable threshold based on your payment type:
Provided your balance due exceeds the payment threshold, we will remit payment approximately 30 days after the end of the calendar month in which the product was shipped. For example, we would remit payment for products that shipped in April at the end of May, which is approximately 30 days after the end of April.
Unfortunately, at this time we do not support paying royalties through checks, so you will need to set up a bank account in a supported country.
Prior to Primamerch issuing a payment, the payment must meet the applicable threshold based on your payment type:
You can find your payment information through the “wallet” tab in the Primamerch
While we report near real time purchases in the Primamerch on Demand portal, Prima does not recognize a sale until the item is shipped to the end customer. We do this for several reasons including: we don't charge the customer until shipment, items can be canceled prior to shipment, and we may find a design that is not printable and will therefore have to cancel the customer's purchase. For example, if a product is ordered on April 30, but doesn’t ship until May 1, the sale will be recognized in May and the associated royalty will be paid in June.
U.S. tax law requires us to report royalty payments made to entities and residents outside of the United States, and may require us to withhold and remit taxes on such royalty payments to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Although you may also be required to report and pay taxes to your own government, we are not involved in that process. You should consult a tax advisor if you have any questions on these requirements.
The standard tax-withholding rate applied to royalty payments made to residents outside of the United States is 30%. If you are a non-U.S. content creator and your country of residence has an existing income tax treaty with the U.S., provided you furnish us with a valid IRS Form W8-BEN (and/or other required documentation), you may be eligible for a reduced rate of U.S. tax withholding on the royalty payments you receive.
Please note that we will provide both you and the IRS with an IRS Form 1042-S each year, which will provide details regarding U.S. taxes withheld and remitted to the IRS during that year.
Please refer to the "Tax Interview" section for additional details on how to provide your tax identity information to Primamerch.
Content creators enter the list price in the Primamerch portal during product setup. Prima independently sets the purchase price, which is the price at which a product is sold by Primamerch. The list price and purchase price may not always be the same.
As Merch has grown, so, too, has the number of returns. If we didn’t deduct your royalties for returned items, Merch would bear the entire cost of returns. This rising cost would impact our ability to reinvest and innovate on behalf of customers and creators alike.
Return data will be visible in a column in the orders tab of the Primamerch portal as well as in the CSV file.
Buyers can return items they’ve purchased for many reasons. This information is not available on the Primamerch Portal. We will provide an update if this feature does become available.
Cancelled products are cancelled by a customer before they are fulfilled by Primamerch. Returned products are printed and shipped to a customer before a return is requested. Royalties are not paid on cancelled products since they are never shipped.
Negative balances are possible when royalties from returned products exceed royalties from shipped products in a given month. For instance, if you earned $20 in royalties in a month, but products that generated a total of $30 in royalties are returned that same month, you would have a negative balance of $10. This negative balance will not be debited from your bank account, but it will be deducted from earnings accrued the following month.
Products can be returned several weeks after an order is received. When viewing returns for a certain time period, it's possible the sales for those returns occurred before that time period.
All of the earnings data from 2020 onward that was available in the prior Earnings tab and CSV download will continue to be available on the Earnings tab. In addition, there are two new tabs (Paid Invoices and Remittances) with additional information related to invoices and payments, including details related to payment status, currency conversion rates, and tax withholding amounts.