Does anyone have any experience of servicing US clients from the UK?

[vwdan]

Spent most of last year consulting to a Candian based firm.

Uhm, honestly, was all much of a muchness. They operated in USD (Because they themselves were consulting to a US firm), so to keep things simple I set up a TransferWise Dollar Account, and invoiced in Dollars. Was just easier all round, and I'd absolutely do the same again - I invoice $1000, they pay $1000 dollars, I reconcile $1000 dollars. Job jobbed, the only bit that's "complex" is the conversion to GBP, which in my case is simply a case of telling Free Agent what the result was.

As above, yeah, IR35 is technically a thing but realistically what are HMRC gonna do. And, let's face it, stating somebody is inside while working remotely for a firm thousands of miles away is a tall order to start with - yeah, it's not impossible, but it's hardly low hanging fruit.

[Peoplesoft bloke]

To be clear, the W-8BEN-E is not your responsibility, it's the client's responsibility. It's held on file by them (not submitted to the IRS) in case the IRS investigate but, as noted above, the client will probably ask for one. In short, it isn't something you volunteer to the client, it's something you complete on request.

This is true although I ended up telling them this was the form they needed and offering it to prevent a lot of faffing about with their accountant who knew zero on the subject and appeared to be getting ready to ask for a load of stuff I couldn't deliver.

It was the first time any of them had done this so they were a little confused.