What is DAC7?

Council Directive (EU) 2021/514 aka DAC7 is a new addition to the existing Council Directive 2011/16/EU dealing with administrative cooperation in the field of taxation. This bill introduces the requirement for reporting platform operators to collect, verify and report data and information on reportable sellers conducting relevant activities through their digital platforms.

So shortly DAC7 is meant to make sure you pay your taxes when you are getting income from stuff you do or sell on a platform in internet. It makes reporting how much you have earned mandatory to platforms. Whole thing is more complicated than that, but big picture is it makes avoiding taxes harder. Not that I am a big fan of the taxes but I think this is a good thing.

DAC7 requires platform to collect and report sellers and their earnings on their platform. Full name, country of residence, address, TIN (Tax Identification Number) and some other information is most important data that is collected and reported. How much money is transferred is also reported and this does not need to be accurate! So if you say on platform that you will do something and that cost $100, but you and customer agree via email that customer pays only $80, platform can (and probably will) report that you have get $100.

DAC7 has been effective over a year now. Reading magazines and articles it looks like some platforms have done it and some haven’t. Those who have not and need to do so can be fined and/or be blocked from EU area. Fines can bee quite expensive. In Poland fine can be 1.1 million euros!

Platforms where I am and DAC7

Stripchat is only platform where I am that has done DAC7. They did ask my TIN and other information needed for DAC7. In fact they made it impossible to avoid giving the information. I suppose Chaturbate and Pornhub will also implement DAC7 at some point. I have not found (or asked) official information about DAC7 from Chaturbate and Pornhub. I have found some Reddit threads about this, but nothing official.

I am not sure is this only because I have registered before 1.1.2023 to Chaturbate and Pornhub. I registered to Stripcat couple months ago. There is a transitional phase now where earning of the users that have registered to platform after 1.1.2023 are required to be reported at the end of this month. All reportable earnings of 2024 of all users must be reported before 31.1.2025. I don’t know when earnings of 2023 of “old users” is reported. Could be before 31.1.2025 for both 2023 and 2024 I don’t know. I find kind of conflicting information about this. Apparently Stripchat did report all earnings of 2023 including old and new users, but I am not sure. My earnings are not reported by stripchat or at least I think so because I have not got any information of reporting, not from Sripchat nor from tax officials. This is because my earnings from Stripchat from 2023 are less than 2000€ reporting limit.

I am not a lawyer so don’t rely only to this blog! Ask from a lawyer, from your country tax officials or from platform that you are getting money.