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Mexican Withholding Tax on Upwork Earnings

lenaellis
Community Member

[Updated March 2023] We would like to update you that we are working with our vendor to have the CFDIs sent out automatically. We hope that this will be functional within the next 2 months and will allow us to provide CFDIs to our Mexican freelancers on a monthly basis. We are continuing to send out any remaining CFDIs that have not been sent out for the last quarter of 2022 as we are aware of the income tax return due date of April 30. We appreciate your continued patience.

 

 

[Updated June 2022] We apologize for the current situation in which CFDIs have not been able to be fully provided  under your name. We are in the process of digitally stamping the CFDIs and we have increased our efforts during the month of June 2022 in order to be able to finalize additional processes and send you the pending documentation as soon as possible.

It is important to mention that any sanction that the tax authority could impose for the non-issuance of a receipt for withholding and payment will not fall on the recipients (i.e. users of the Upwork platform). We understand that at this time you have not been able to prove the calculation of withholdings on your taxes, however, we will notify you as soon as the receipts are issued so that the withholdings may be used by you.

 

[Updated April 2022] We thank you for your patience. As of today, we are able to issue CFDIs for most of the transactions in Mexico and have begun processing all calendar year 2021 transactions. We will email your CFDIs in the coming weeks, but if you need to request that we expedite the process, please submit your request to support@upwork.com and we will send you your CFDIs as soon as we can. 

 

The email with your CFDIs will come from Reachcore (servicioalcliente@reachcore.com). Please add this email to your safe sender list to avoid this email being filtered as spam. The  subject of the email will be “Envío de comprobante fiscal”. In some cases, the email will come from tax@upwork.com.

 

We thank you again for your patience and please do not hesitate to reach out to us if you have any questions.

 

[Updated February 2022] We would like to take this opportunity to update you on the latest status of issuing CFDIs in Mexico. As you are aware, Upwork began income withholding in 2021. However, there was a delay in our registration process due to the complexities of a non-resident entity obtaining tax registration in Mexico. That being said, we successfully registered for tax registration in Mexico at the end of 2021. 

 

Now that we’re registered, we've worked tirelessly to issue CFDIs for income withholding that we have made. We were in discussion with one "Proveedores Autorizados de Certificación" (PAC) vendor, but due to the vendor's inability to meet our high data protection requirements, we made a difficult decision to move in a different direction. As much as we want to issue CFDIs ASAP, our user's data privacy is our primary priority and therefore we want to work with the right vendor who maintains high standards of securing our users’ data. A few weeks ago, we entered into a contract with a different PAC vendor and we are currently working through testing of our integrations. Once completed, we hope to issue the CFDIs shortly thereafter.

 

We are aware of the income tax return due date of April 30th, and we will provide an additional update as soon as we have a clear timeline of delivering CFDIs to you. We are working tirelessly to get this done within a reasonable timeframe, and appreciate your continued patience. 



 

[Original Product Release] Upwork has begun withholding income tax from payments to freelancers and agencies based in Mexico as part of the tax law enforced by the Mexican government which became effective June 1, 2020 and was modified effective January 1, 2021 (the Resolución Miscelánea Fiscal). This law requires businesses like us to collect income tax on the earnings of service providers who are based in Mexico, such as freelancers and agencies who use Upwork.

 

As part of our continued efforts to remain compliant with tax laws in Mexico, we are asking that freelancers and agencies based in Mexico provide their Clave en el Registro Federal de Contribuyentes, Income Tax Identification number (RFC) in their Tax Infosection under “Settings”

 

By providing a valid RFC number you are subject to significantly lower tax withholding.

  • If you provide a valid RFC number we will withhold 1% of all your Upwork earnings, starting with all payments made on or after April 6, 2021. 

 

  • If you don’t provide a valid RFC number we will withhold 20% of all your Upwork earnings, starting with all payments made on or after April 6, 2021. 

 

This withholding is required by Mexican law and all funds withheld will be passed to the Mexican government. You will be able to claim a tax credit or refund from the Mexican government should you pay more taxes than required.  


We also want to give you a heads up that the same legislation included adding a Valued Added Tax (VAT) on digital services. Upwork is required to collect VAT on its fees charged to users in Mexico. We have begun configuring our system to be able to collect VAT, and we will let you know when we have a target date to start collection. 

 

For additional information see our Help center article and for questions about withholdings and how this applies to you, we suggest you contact a trusted tax advisor. We cannot provide tax advice.

309 Comments
rayfreelance
Community Member

Hey Dioris,

Yeap, I have tried in different ways to explain what will happen if Up get an RFC with SAT, the next step is all the Mexican freelancers asking for social security contributions, paid vacations, retirement contributions, Infonavit contributions, and all the benefits by law that we receive when we declare that we work for a Mexican company with an RFC (We will be forced to declare full income before fees and this invoice in favor to "Up México" RFC.)
We will have the availability to get Infonavit points by making voluntary contributions, you know what this means? hahaha
Probably is not too bad the additional VAT 16% if this end badly is not going to be for me 🤣

rayfreelance
Community Member

Hi Up team,
This is what I need from you.

  • Razón Social (legal name subscribed on SAT)
  • Clave RFC
  • I need to receive by email a CFDI on a monthly basis for the retention that you should make (1% ISR + 8% VAT I already registered my RFC on my account)  for my total income including the Up fee.

Please provide the mentioned details asap, we need to do an update with SAT and a penalty could apply if we don't do it in time and manner.

For all the Mexicans in Up, you will find all the details that you need to know here 
http://omawww.sat.gob.mx/plataformastecnologicas/Paginas/PersonasFisicas/personasfisicas_inicio.html 

 

A change in the activity is needed to CLAVE 2411 we are providing a service through the internet on a digital/technological platform.

Thanks,

alonsogyg222
Community Member

Hello,

I have provided my RFC.

In the memo you put on upwork Platform you're saying that you will hold either 20 or 1 % on the earnings I make after april based on the condition of RFC

 

From my understanding If I provide RFC you're going to take 1% but this message says otherwise.

 

So which one is it?

 

 

 

AndreaG
Moderator

Hi Alonso,

 

If you provide a valid RFC number we will withhold 1% of all your Upwork earnings, starting with all payments made on or after April 1, 2021. 

 

Thanks!

mintlights
Community Member

Hi, just to be completely sure, if I transfer my current earnings to my bank account before April 1st without adding the RFC (or with the RFC), this withhold won't affect me for now?.

VladimirG
Community Manager

Hi Marian,

 

Thanks for the question. If you don’t provide a valid RFC number we will withhold 20% of all your Upwork earnings, starting with all payments made on or after April 1, 2021.

jmontesino_rodri
Community Member

Is there an update on the status of Upwork's registratrion with SAT and its RFC as a company?

webforefront
Community Member

Hi Raymundo & Upwork, 

     Raymundo, have you gotten or found any of the tax information you're requesting from Upwork ?  

      I also spoke to an accountant and he mentioned I can't do much without Upwork's RFC, this is needed to add/update this new activity to receive income via tech platforms. 

      He emphasized that since the end clients (beneficiaries) for our services are not in Mexico (unless we work for Mexican clients on Upwork), this whole process of retaining income tax, applying VAT/IVA to services and Upwork applying for an RFC is a complete boondoggle.  Mentinoing that Upwork is not like Uber, AirBnB, Amazon and other platforms that broker services between two mexican parties, which are the only financial transactions applicable to this new legislation.

       Upwork, it's awful that there has been no due dilligience to applying these changes that take effect two weeks.
         .- Upwork, where is the official information about Upwork's RFC ?
         .- Upwork, what will be the monthly reporting (facturacion) strategy ? will you generate an official invoice (with both parties RFC ) ? Do we need to generate it for you ?  
          .- Upwork, this fixed 1% Upwork retention you describe is not what the law says, it's not flat, there's a retention tier based on income level.
          .- Upwork, what will you do about the VAT/IVA percentage for services ? You mention in your statement " We are currently working to determine which transactions are subject to VAT collection. " really ? currently ? and this will take effect in two weeks ?
           .- Upwork, what is your local & address in Mexico ? so I can forward all legal request in writing on all matters, in case there's a problem with these legally binding operations you're about to enforce as a company operating in Mexico. 

         Upwork we need clear and upfront information about all these matters. Saying " We cannot provide tax advice" is not sufficient, you will be withholding taxes on activities that are not even subject to this law, on top of which, you're not forthcoming with all the required information by law to start performing these withholdings.

rayfreelance
Community Member

Hi Daniel,
No, I haven't received Up RFC

My accountant explained to me that there are 2 cases for Up retention (we can "decide" between them at the moment that we register the "change in activity" with SAT)

  • Temporary Retention  >> if your annual income is above 300k you must choose this option, you will have to make a monthly declaration (ISR + VAT) + annual declaration, the taxes will be significative higher in this case, apparently, you will be allowed to deduct VAT from all the invoices that you receive that have a direct relation with providing the service.   
  • Definitive Retention >> if your income is below 300K this is the best option by far, because Up will retain apparently 1% ISR + 8%VAT and that's it, you don't need to do anything else.

To make it clear, we must do the change on activity and we need to declare which platform(s) is the intermediate and link Up RFC. When we do this, we must specify if Up retention is temporary or definitive based on annual income.

 

Since Up is intermediate and will have an RFC, the invoice that we will generate (if we select temporary retention) will be with Up legal name and RFC (it doesn't matter if you are hired by a Mexican or foreign client) if you select definitive retention you won't make an invoice but Up will retain 1% ISR + 8% VAT

You can declare more than 1 activity, in my case I will have two: "person with professional activity" (persona física con actividad empresarial profesional) >> no need to generate an invoice when clients are from countries different than México and I'll also declare that I'm providing a service through a digital platform.

I hope this helps ☝
persona física 
retention based on income 
new clave/taxes 

webforefront
Community Member

Hi Raymundo, 

     Thanks for the reply. Yes, this lines up exactly with what I was also told by an accountant. What's worriesomme is the lack of information from Upwork, everything is 'apparently', 'we're investigating', all they're clear on is they will begin withholding income (& don't know if VAT/IVA applies -- yes it does if they withold and have an RFC ) and keep on charging their commision/fee for all work.

     In my case, I will need to go for the Temporary retention and I also two activities. But the first problem is, I can't do this without Upwork's RFC. Once I get that, then comes the invoice issues. My client (the one I do the work for) doesn't require an official invoice (factura), but now that Upwork will withhold taxes, by implication it will inform SAT about the total monthly income, then I'm going to be liable for taxes on whole income (VAT/IVA 16% + ISR 34% !! + Upwork fees) when before VAT/IVA didn't apply  and ISR was a minimum rate because it was a service export. Talk about a shave or needing to adjust rates to stay afloat. With SAT knowing total income, someone will get penalized for the lack of an official invoice (factura), the accountant told me that by Upwok doing the withoholding (retencion) the onus is on Upwork to make a monthly official invoice (factura), but they aren't clear they will do this, just that they will withold, either way, SAT will know the total income.

      It also isn't clear there will be an official invoice (factura) for the fees Upwork charges every week, they need to emit an official invoice (factura) so we can deduct that as an business expense, with the corresponding IVA/VAT (plus that will also make them liable for ISR, but that's their problem) 

      And don't let me get started with the withholdigs (retenciones) for ISR or IVA/VAT, as there is absolutly no guarantee that those payments will be made to SAT in the end. I've already had bad experiences with local companies (S.A. de C.V.s) that have withheld income and that when you go to claim these benefits on your annual declaration, they 'bounce' (like a bad check) and you get a notification that because the counter-party(S.A de C.V.s)  hasn't payed the retenciones yet, you're on the hook until it's 'resolved'! That's why I want to ensure where the Upwork local mexican offices are/will be located.

       I'm still astonished Upwork plans on inflicting this kind of burden and paperwork when it doesn't even apply to them given the type of platform they are, enabling business between international clients (not two mexican parties). The only winners in all of these are the coyotes that are forcing Upwork management team to register as a mexican company and be held liable for all the countless formalities, fees and expenses, taking us along for the ride into the unknown.