How would my payment for this film script be split and taxed?
Question by Lily R: How would my payment for this film script be split and taxed?
Okay, I’m very new to the film industry, my first script in fact and to be honest I don’t know a thing about how payment is split and what makes it even more confusing, is my payment for my script will be split between four parties who live in two different countries if I’m correct.
Right, I’m 17 years old (18 in October) and I’ve got permission off of an author to adapt her novel into a film script and sell it on and the author of the novel is sorting me with an agent (I do know that the agent and the author will obviously get a cut of my money). Anyway, the author of the novel already knows, I’m not to good at writing film scripts, I can write a script for a play but not for a film, so to fix this my ex-girlfriend, who has a good knowledge of how to write film scripts is going to fix up the script so it is presentable as a proper film script and obviously she’d be entitled to a cut because on the script she’s credited as camera angles (that’s the part of a film script I can’t do).
Now the two countries matter, the author of the novel is of permanent residence in the USA, I’m assuming it will be the same with the agent, me and my ex-girlfriend on the other hand are of permanent residence in the UK.
Basically, I want to know this:
How will the payment be split between each party, like percentage wise? And with the parties being in two seperate countries how will the payment be taxed?
Best answer:
Answer by tro
if this is being handled by an agent there undoubtedly will be a contract and the splits will all be set down in that contract, the author will get the major portion, the agent will get his share and those who produce it will get theirs
if your g/f is listed as being one of the participants(and I frankly don’t see why you would name her if she basically is going to do the real work, it doesn’t bode well for your reputation)
if she is listed she will be assigned a share and you will get your share
if you did not name her in the contract, then you would pay her a portion of your share as a sub contractor
and re: local taxes, however independent contractors are taxed in the UK(in the US they are sole proprietors, file a sch C and pay self employment tax
What do you think? Answer below!
