I am currently living is U.S on a H1B visa. Apart from working for my employer i am writing editorials.?
They are telling you to fill out W8-BEN to declare that you are exempt from USA taxes. It is basically a way to tell the US government that you will be taxed in your country of origin so that they do not double tax you. The company unfortunately has to do this, because for you to be taxed in the US for this job, they would need to file an I-9 before they would be able to legally pay you. Filing I-9 requires a work visa (I-94) number. So in short, they cannot tax you in US for this job without you having a valid work visa to work for the second employer in US. H-1B can only be used for 1 employer at a time. So as long as you have this second job, you will need to file 2 tax returns from now on. One in USA for the income you earn in your H-1B job (which you are being taxed in US for), and another one in your country of origin. In the one you file in your country of origin, you need to declare the income you earn in your second job as “income earned abroad” and let that country tax it acc
