What a day. I created accounts with all the places I want to self-publish Deus Ex Machina, and found myself staring at the Amazon page in horror when it demanded my US tax number before I could go any further. Not all my telling it that “Hey! British here! And haven’t we already a history about taxation, O former colony?” had any effect. The taxation tables have been well and truly turned.

A few hours of WTF later, and I am now registered with the IRS as a non-resident alien and I have a tax number. Sadly that confers no rights and benefits, and merely imposes responsibilities on me to cough up a proportion of any money I make in US sales. I’m not anticipating that will be a great deal of money for the Federal coffers – a percentage of a pittance is still a pittance.

It would be nice if a green card came with it and I could retire to live in Maine, but we can’t have everything.