As an independent contractor, should I always charge the client the GST/HST?
Hourly rate is not the determinant.  You could be selling widgets, not hours. Rather, there's a $30,000 annual revenue threshold for GST/HST. If your business's annual revenues fall below that amount, you don't need to register for GST/HST and in such case you don't charge your clients the tax. You could still choose to register for GST/HST if your revenues are below the threshold, in which case you must charge your clients the tax. Some businesses voluntarily enroll for GST/HST, even when below the threshold, so they can claim input tax credits. If your annual revenues exceed $30,000, you must register for GST/HST and you must charge your clients the tax.  FWIW, certain kinds of supplies are exempt, but the kind of services you'd be offering as an independent contractor in Canada aren't likely to be. There's more to the GST/HST than this, so be sure to talk to a tax accountant. References:
The best way is for X to work as Independent consultant fro c.com from India by raising monthly invoices for the work done. This will avoid the complications and paperwork associated by registering a LLC in US by XF and then employing X as independent consultant in India. X may need to fill out W8-BEN forms so that there is no withholding in US Edit: Independent consultant means without having to register any legal entity either in India or in US. There are no legal regulations in US or in India to hire an independent contractor / consultant. There maybe internal policy of C.com not to have independent consultants. Payments can be made via transfer to Bank account. "TLDR:  Yes you can. That is quite a steep price to pay for a trade.  I've used TradeKing previously, which would charge you $5 for that same trade.  Some other brokers are more or less expensive, and it is normally representative of the service one receives.  One option would be Scottrade.  While they are much more expensive than TradeKing, they offer a much higher level of service.  Even at $17 a trade, you'll save a lot of money over the Edward Jones trade. A big question here is who does your investing now?  Most people are pretty horrible at managing their own investments.  Some professional advice is probably in order.  For most they discover this when their investments are small, mitigating any mistakes made.  You don't have that luxury.  I would highly recommend making sure you have people that can help you make good decisions. The more I think about it the more I like the move to Scottrade (no affiliation) or one like that (Charles Schwab is another option).  With Scottrade you can go into a local branch and talk things over.  I think they offer some professional management as well.  Schwab will offer the latter but not the former.  However you can call them up and talk on the phone.  Another option is to go with Fidelity and have them manage at least part of your money.  Of course you can always just do a professional, independent money manager. Another option is to renegotiate with Edward Jones.  Something like:  ""Sorry but this is ridiculous, you need to do much better or I am moving all my money.""  Its much cheaper to charge you $100 for that same trade than lose the whole account." Apparently Canadians have not been paying any tax on Uber rides, and will only begin to do so on July 1, 2017. Source: http://mobilesyrup.com/2017/03/22/uber-canada-gst-hst-budget-2017/ I have the PDF of Wells Fargo bank sent by my client which also quotes the SWIFT Confirmation #.  This is just the internal reference maybe from SWIFT terminal. It just means SWIFT received the message. Nothing more. What may have happened ? It could have got stuck somewhere in correspondent Bank chain. Or may have reached ICICI NY and they are not able to apply funds to your account in the ICICI India branch for whatever reasons. What are my next steps here ?  You would need to do 2 things; First contact your ICICI bank branch with this details and ask them if they can trace it for you. Second contact your client and ask them to raise a BCNR [Beneficiary Claims Non Receipt] for this transaction with Wells Fargo. Wells Fargo is bound to investigate this. Depending on your Clients relationship with Wells Fargo, there maybe charges of around 30-50 USD. This would trace the payment via Wells Fargo to the next in chain and can identify where it was stuck or when it was credited. What more information should I ask for The information in confirmation is quite less. Talk to your client and see if you are request for Sender Reference Number [This is preserved from Wells Fargo to your ICICI bank], BIC of Wells Fargo, Immediate routing [or sender Correspondent]; i.e. which Bank the payment was sent to [Wells Fargo may send it to other Bank and then it would reach ICICI] In Australia, any income you earn is taxable despite where it came from. Using your example your taxable income is $70,000. Keep in mind that with a business even as a sole trader any business expenses that contribute to the earning of your business income is deductible, reducing the final amount of tax you'll have to pay.  The ATO website has lots of good information and examples to look at including tax rates.  If your total income is pushing  into a higher tax bracket over 30c tax per $1 earned, it may be worth looking at shifting your business to operate under a company structure that just has a fixed tax rate around 30c per $1.  That said, for me, I don't want the paperwork overhead of a company yet so I'm running my side business as a sole trader too. I'd rather do that and keep it easy for now while my business gets profitable that waste time on admin structures for tax reasons even if in the shortterm it may mean slightly higher tax. In the end, you only pay tax on profit (income minus expenses) as opposed to raw/gross income.  For more info there are good books in the bookshops or local library (to read free) on starting a business on the side while still working. They discuss these issues too. In general the other party will expect you to keep your promises. If you promise to do something for a fixed amount of money, you take on a risk and it is no longer their problem if you work slower than you planned. In principle it could even be the case that you take on a project and fail, after which the company may not have to pay at all. So regardless of how things should be written in your books (For example a theoretical pay above minimum wage but a loss for your private company): An important thing to note is that if you are worried about ending up below minimum wage, you are definitely asking a fee that is too low. You should keep in mind that your fee should include a fair compensation for the expected work, and a fair compensation for the risk that you have taken on. No, even businesses pay taxes quarterly.  So if you formed Nathan, LLC, or otherwise became self employed, you'd still have to file quarterly estimates and make tax payments.  This would cause taxes to be a much more high touch part of your life. However, you should ensure that you're claiming the proper exemptions etc to avoid excessive withholding. "In the US, you'd run the risk of being accused of fraud if this weren't set up properly.  It would only be proper if your wife could show that she were involved, acting as your agent, bookkeeper, etc. Even so, to suggest that your time is billed at one rate but you are only paid a tiny fraction of that is still a high risk alert.  I believe the expression ""if it quacks like a duck..."" is pretty universal. If not, I'll edit in a clarification.  note -I know OP is in UK, but I imagine tax collection is pretty similar in this regard."