GoTaxHub · Tax, GST, TDS, accounting, advisory and every other compliance · For full-time creators and creator-led brands, wherever in the world they earn

You earn from six different places. Each one is taxed in its own way.

We look after all of it, so that you do not have to.

Three quick questions

If you are unsure about any of them, there is money you can still get back.

1

The LUT

Have you filed the one-page form that lets you bill foreign platforms without charging GST? (It is called an LUT.)

2

Gifted product

When a brand sends you a product and you keep it, is it written down anywhere in your accounts?

3

Your TAN

Do you have a TAN — the number you need before you can pay an editor or a designer?

Most creators earning over a crore answer no to all three. None of them have been careless. Nobody ever told them that these rules applied to them as well. Sorting this out is exactly what we do.

You earn from six places, and each one is taxed differently

📺

Platform earnings

Google and Meta pay you from outside India, so this counts as an export and no GST is due. That only applies if a one-page form (an LUT) is on file first.

🤝

Brand partnerships

You charge 18% GST. The brand keeps back either 10% or 2% of your fee as tax (TDS), and which one applies depends on how the contract is worded.

🔗

Affiliate income

From 30 March 2026, money from foreign affiliate platforms carries no GST either. Most creators' books have not been updated and still charge 18% on it.

🎓

Courses and digital products

Here the tax follows where your buyer sits, not where you sit. Online products have their own set of rules (called OIDAR).

🎤

Events and appearances

Since January 2025 you charge the GST on sponsorship yourself, instead of the sponsor paying it. A lot of invoices are still written the old way.

📦

Merchandise and physical sales

Goods carry their own rates, every product needs the correct code (HSN), and the marketplace already collects a small amount of tax for you (TCS).

You do not need to keep any of this in your head. Knowing which rule applies to which rupee is our job, not yours.

What we catch

1 · AdSense treated as Indian income

₹7,20,000

That is the GST payable on 40 lakh of AdSense income, for one reason only: a single one-page form was never filed.

Google pays your AdSense from outside India, so it counts as an export and no GST is due on it. That holds only if the form (Form RFD-11, the LUT) is filed before your first payment of the financial year, and it cannot be backdated later. We file it for you every year, on time, without you having to ask.

2 · The free camera

A brand sends you a camera worth ₹1,80,000 and you post about it. In tax terms, two separate things have just happened.

Under GST

You gave the brand a promotional service and were paid in goods instead of cash. So 18% GST applies on what the camera is worth, and an invoice should have been raised for it.

Under income tax

Once the products you keep cross ₹20,000 in a year, the brand has to deduct 10% tax on their value. Either way, the camera counts as part of your income.

The department can already see it in your annual statement (the AIS), so a return that leaves it out does not match their records. We keep a simple register of everything a brand sends you, valued on the day it arrives, so nothing is missed and nothing has to be remembered in March.

3 · The wrong shortcut scheme

₹22 lakh

On 50 lakh of earnings, the option you file under changes your taxable income by ₹22 lakh.

6% — filed as a business

Your taxable income is treated as ₹3 lakh.

50% — filed as a profession

Your taxable income is treated as ₹25 lakh, on exactly the same money.

Creators were given a profession code (16021) but were never added to the official list of professionals, so the law here is genuinely unsettled. We take a clear position, write down the reasoning behind it and keep it on file — so if it is ever questioned, the answer already exists.

4 · You have to deduct tax too

₹12 lakh

When you pay your editor, your designer, your manager or your studio rent, you are required to hold back a part as tax and deposit it.

What you need

A TAN number, tax deducted at the moment you pay, deposited by the 7th of the next month, and a return filed every quarter.

If it is missed

30% of that expense is no longer allowed as a cost, and interest plus a fee is charged for every day of delay.

What that means

If you paid ₹40 lakh to editors, ₹12 lakh of it gets added back to your income.

So the costs you assumed were reducing your tax are the very ones that end up increasing it. We run these deductions, deposits and quarterly returns for you, so this simply does not happen.

This is not really a filing problem. It is an advice problem.

Filing it yourself

Takes care of: A return does get filed, usually on the wrong form.

Leaves out: Everything above.

A generalist CA

Takes care of: Your returns go in on time.

Leaves out: The foreign-income form, free products you keep, credit for tax already paid abroad, and how you are structured.

An online filing portal

Takes care of: It is cheap and it is quick.

Leaves out: Nobody is responsible for the outcome, and there is no one to ask when the question is difficult.

GoTaxHub Creator Desk

Takes care of: All six income streams, mapped and watched through the year.

Leaves out: Nothing is left to March. We tell you while you can still do something about it.

The question every creator asks

“Should I open a private limited company?” Most of the time, the honest answer is no.

If you earn under 50 lakh

Stay as you are. The simple scheme keeps your tax low and your paperwork light, and a company would gain you nothing.

If you take out everything you earn

A company costs you more. You pay tax inside the company, tax again when you take the money out, and about ₹1.5 lakh a year in compliance.

If you are building something

A team, a product, investors or a buyer on the horizon — that is the point at which a company starts to pay for itself.

And if you do form one, your handles, trademarks and content library must be signed over to it in writing. Otherwise the company earns the money but owns nothing, and any future deal gets stuck in due diligence. We will tell you which of these three you are in, and when that changes.

What the GoTaxHub Creator Desk does for you

🗺

We map your money

We list every place you earn from, decide how each one should be taxed, and put that decision down in writing.

📅

We run your compliance

Your GST, the LUT, the TDS returns, your advance tax and your ITR, all on a calendar you can see at any time.

📜

We read your contracts

Before you sign a brand deal, we check the tax clause, the GST terms and how any free product has been valued.

🎁

We track the free products

Everything a brand sends you is logged, with a value recorded on the day it arrives rather than guessed a year later.

🌎

We handle foreign income

The LUT, the bank paperwork for money coming from abroad, credit for tax already paid there, and your foreign asset disclosure.

💭

We answer the big questions

How you should be structured, who should own your name and your content, and at what income any of that should change.

One team, one calendar, one person to call. You carry on making content.

How we start, with no commitment from you

1

The health check

You send us your last two returns, your GST position and three months of bank statements. It takes us about forty-five minutes.

2

A written note

You get two pages: what is at risk, what you have already overpaid, and the rupee figure against each. It costs you nothing.

3

You decide

Take the note to your current CA, or hand the work over to us. Both are perfectly fine outcomes for us.

Step three is real. Roughly half the notes we write are acted on by somebody else, and we are genuinely fine with that.

What it costs

Compliance

₹12–18kper month

For creators earning between 25 lakh and 50 lakh.

  • Your books
  • Your GST and the LUT
  • Your ITR
  • Advance tax
Enquire

Creator Desk

₹25–40kper month

For creators earning between 50 lakh and 2 crore.

  • Everything in Compliance
  • The tax you have to deduct
  • Register of free products
  • Contract reviews
  • Planning every quarter
Enquire

Creator CFO

₹75k–1.5Lper month

For creators and creator-led brands above 2 crore.

  • Everything in Creator Desk
  • Structuring and IP placement
  • Payroll
  • Monthly reporting
  • Investor readiness
Enquire

We agree the year up front and bill it monthly, because your income is seasonal and our fee should not pretend otherwise. The price is fixed, so there are no surprise bills.

What we will not do

We do not advise on advertising law, defamation or takedown notices. We will flag the issue and point you to a lawyer who handles it.
We do not handle SEBI registration for financial content. We will tell you where the line sits and who you should call.
We do not negotiate your brand rates. We check what you are about to sign.

A firm that claims to do all of it is usually a firm that has not done any of it. You will always know exactly who is looking after what.

Send us last year’s return and three months of bank statements.

Within a week you will have a two-page note with a real number on it. Then you decide what to do next. Nothing to sign, nothing to pay.

GoTaxHub · CA Parth Garg · office@gotaxhub.com

Disclaimer: This page is general guidance as at 22 September 2026 and is not advice on any specific situation. References reflect the Income-tax Act, 2025 (in force from 1 April 2026), the CGST and IGST Acts as amended, and GST rates effective 22 September 2025. Positions on the classification of creator income as business or profession remain unsettled pending clarification. Please obtain advice on your own facts before acting.