Why ORUS asks
ORUS is a UK company that runs a marketplace, and UK law (the Platform Operators Regulations, the UK's version of rules most of the world's tax offices have agreed) asks every marketplace to tell HM Revenue and Customs once a year who sold through it and what they earned. That covers products, classes, courses, coaching and events, sellers in the UK and abroad, however they are paid.
So before your first payout, Verify asks for your tax details. Until you have added and confirmed them, what you are owed is held for you, not lost, and it is paid on the next payout run after you confirm.
What you are asked for
First, whether you are paid as an individual (a sole trader counts) or as a business. Then:
- An individual: your legal first and last name, your date of birth, your home address, and your tax number with the country that issued it
- A business: its legal name, its registered address, its tax number and the country that issued it, its registration number, and its VAT number or that it is not VAT registered
- In the UK, an individual gives their National Insurance number; a company its Companies House registration number; a partnership its partnership Unique Taxpayer Reference
- In Malaysia, your income tax number from LHDN
- If your country does not issue tax numbers, tick that box rather than leave the field blank
Confirming them
After you save, Verify shows the details back and asks you to confirm they are correct. If you change anything later, it asks you to confirm again; payouts wait until you do.
ORUS reports these details and what you earn through ORUS to HM Revenue and Customs each year, as UK law requires.
Who sees them
Once saved, your tax number and date of birth are stored encrypted and never shown in full again, not even to you: you see the last four characters and can replace the number at any time. Only ORUS's founders can open the full number, and every time they do it is recorded. They are used for the yearly report to HM Revenue and Customs and for nothing else.
Questions at this step
I sell very little. Am I still reported?
A seller of products only, with fewer than 30 sales and under 2,000 euros in a year, is left out of the report. You are still asked for the details, because nobody knows at the start of a year how it will end.
Does ORUS pay my tax for me?
No. ORUS reports what you earned; what you owe, and telling your own tax office about it, stays with you.
I am a club, an expert and a coach. Do I add them three times?
A club adds the club's details on the club's Verify page. As a person, an expert or an independent coach adds their own once, on Earnings, and it covers both.