Receive credit on your Partner Center account for tax withholding
Appropriate roles: Account admin | Billing admin
Overview
Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) partners in some countries receive invoice amounts that include taxes. Some of these partners pay their local tax authority instead of Microsoft. If you do pay your local tax authority, you need to submit a tax withholding request including your tax certificate to clear the taxed amount from previous invoices. These cleared amounts are reflected in the Last payment column on the Billing page in Partner Center.
Partners used to submit tax withholding requests by creating service requests (Partner support tickets) in Partner Center. This process changed in January 2020. Now, CSP partners should submit tax withholding requests on the Billing page instead of creating Support Requests.
Important
Partners can submit withholding tax requests only for partially paid invoices. For fully paid or unpaid invoices, contact support with your Tax Withholding Certificate.
Submit a tax withholding request
Follow these steps to submit a new tax withholding:
Sign in to the Partner Center dashboard and select the Billing tile.
Select Billing history.
Select Submit new next to the invoice you want to submit a clearance for. The submit new link will take you to the New tax withholding request page.
Review the invoice details to ensure you are submitting the request for the correct invoice.
Enter the "Withholding total" under Tax withholding details. The "Withholding total" is the amount you expect to be credited.
Attach a tax certificate. You will need to include a digital copy of your withholding tax certificate in your tax withholding request. You received this certificate from your local tax agency when you pay your taxes to your local tax authority. The invoice tax amount in the withholding tax certificate must match total amount in your tax withholding request.
Important
The amount totals the partner provides should match the invoice line item from the attached tax certificate. Attached tax certificate files must be in one of the following file formats: .PDF or Image only (.JPEG, .PNG and .GIF). Additionally, files names should not contain spaces or special characters. File sizes cannot exceed 1 MB.
Submit the tax withholding request.
Once submitted, the request will go into the approval process where it will be approved for completion or sent back to you if corrections are needed. View the request ID and status of your requests and in the Billing history where you submitted the new request from.
If your request is sent back to you, you will be able to change the withholding amount and replace the certificate if there is a problem with it.
Update request and resubmit
The review team may require you to make corrections and resubmit a request before it can be approved. They will change the status to Pending partner action.
To correct and resubmit the request:
Sign in to the Partner Center dashboard and select the Billing tile.
Select Billing history.
Find tax withholding request. Requests needing your attention will have a status of "Pending partner action."
Select the tax withholding request ID and status taking you to the request's page.
Select Update and resubmit under Status.
Review the comments left by the reviewers highlighting what needs to be changed.
Make the corrections by either resubmitting an updated certificate or adjust the withholding amounts.
Submit the request.
Submitting the request will send it back to the review team where they will either approve or ask for more changes.
Approved requests
Approved tax withholding requests will be executed against your next invoice, writing off the owed amount. Requests that are flagged as Completed should be applied within 10 business days.
Cleared amounts will be reflected on the Billing page billing history section. The amounts cleared will show in the Last payment column next to the invoice the request was submitted towards.
Important
Previous invoices are not regenerated or reissued. The clearance amount is simply applied to the previous months payments.
Processing the tax withholding requests should take two days to complete assuming the tax certificate and amount are correct. If there are changes required it will take longer, because of the corrections that need to be made and resubmitted.
If you have questions about the withholding tax credit request process, submit a ticket to Partner Support. You will need the tax withholding request ID to resolve questions.
German tax withholding
Partners who submit German tax withholding requests should remember to mail hard copies of your withholding tax certificate to the following address:
- ATTN: EOC Tax Team Marianne Gannon
- Microsoft EMEA Operations Centre
- One Microsoft Place,
- South County Business Park
- Leopardstown, Dublin 18, Ireland
Questions and assistance for tax withholding requests
Partners should use the new process detailed above to submit new requests and no longer use support request creation for new tax withholding requests. Partners with more questions about tax withholding requests can submit support requests. Support requests are intended to help partners for existing requests so they will need to have their Request ID to submit a new ticket. If partners cannot submit a request using the new process, they should enter some number (all 1's) into the support request form.
Important
Partners do not need to contact support if their request status is Completed. This status shows up in the Billing history next to the invoice for the submission. Last payment amounts next to the invoice should reflect the tax withholding amount withint ten days after the request is marked as Completed.
Important
If more than one invoice is generated in a month for different billing periods, you can combine the withholding tax receipts for those periods and submit them as one receipt in the Partner Center.