GST and PST not part of Paypal WHY NOT?

[cutecoins]

I am looked through some of the tax discussion. What a pain....if you don't pay taxes you are breaking the law and you should be reported. I collect taxes and yes I fill out all the darn forms too....I send in the money too. And yes it is a pain in the neck. That said, when is Ebay.ca, USA Ebay and paypale going to start figuring out that Canada has a double level tax system. One tax is for the federal tax (goods and services) and the other for some provinces. The big dealers have their customers phone in on a 800 number then there is the rest of us small fry who nickel and dime the problem by sending returns or resending bills or sending double bills from ebay, paypal and our own email. I love you cutting down trees so we can keep the forest industry operational p[roducing paper but this is crazy. Come on guys lets get over the tax problem by incorportaing it in the software so we end up selling rather then B.S. ing about it....
Since I am in the mood to change the world today...does any one know why sales have dropped off....I have never seeen it so dead this week. Normally we have a few sales by now ....but gee where have all the customers gone. You may not think this by the notes here but Ebay is a open window to the world for the small dealers across nothern Ontario and much of Canada...Hope we can get the nickel and dime stuff fixed so Ebay can be the best it can be.... seriously no BS... All the Best from Northern Ontario.

[ospreylinks]

Hey cutecoins, where are you in Northern Ontario. I am in North Bay.

Jeff

[cutecoins]

Jeff....my lord my good man.....try driving 19 hours to the west.....I am between ThunderBay and Winnipeg. All the best southerner.... Gee I moved from the Northwest Territories to where I am now...this is in fact the deep south.... Thanks for noticing... JAB

[ospreylinks]

I was there once..... (well drove through).... maybe it was your house I stopped at to ask if I could use the washroom.....

Jeff

[ospreylinks]

We call ourselves Northern Ontario.... aren't you suppose to call yourselves North Western Ontario?

(Just a little northern geographic humour).

Jeff

[ospreylinks]

And sorry for taking your thread off topic....

(I really do that too often)

Jeff

[mirakbiz_inc]

Going back to the original comment, I think that if both Paypal and ebay were compatible with Canadian Taxes, they could take a big part of the power sellers business that it's now being handed out to sites like auction works, andale, vendio... etc

I would prefer to use only eBay's checkout and have the paypal link right there


I hope they'll listen

[cutecoins]

If any one is interested in making suggestions on having ebay and paypal include Canadian taxes.....you may want to post your suggestion to Ebay to provide GST, HST, and PST to be included in the system....As you may know reposting letters, invoices with ajusted amounts is a pain in the nexk. If more then a few of use make the suggestion maybe we can make Ebay even better. Take a moment and check out the note before...

Hello,

Thank you for writing eBay.

There aren't any current plans to implement that. However, many of the
changes made on the site are due to suggestions received from our eBay
Members. While we are unable to implement every suggestion, we do review
all of the suggestions we receive.

You can send your suggestions by following these directions:

1. Click on "site map" located at the very top of every eBay page.
2. Click on the link titled "Suggestion Box" found in the third column
near the bottom.
3. Click on the link titled "Send us your suggestion to improve the eBay
site."

Thank you for using eBay for your online trading needs.

Regards,

[amberwoodottawa]

I received an eBay update yesterday as I am sure most of you did. In that update was the following:
"eBay.ca Goes PayPal Friendly
Starting later in February, PayPal will become completely integrated into the eBay.ca site. This is great news for both buyers and sellers..."

Yet nothing about changes to their tax portion and truly being Canadian-user friendly!

Further in the notice:
"We'll be hosting a free, online PayPal workshop on Feb 19th at our Canada Town Square discussion board from 1-2 pm EST, to answer any questions and take you through the new benefits."

This may be the way to keep plastering them with questions surrounding the inclusion of GST and Provincial taxes.

It seems that what they consider to be an improvement for Canadian sellers and buyers is not much more than how they will continue to promote thier services (such as Buyer Protection) and themselves within our listings.

I am not knocking PayPal however with a trading partner as large as Canada, why cant they get up to speed with the tax issue?

Malcolm

[amberwoodottawa]

A thought comes to mind why PayPal may not be rushing to include Cdn taxes as an option.

I dont believe that PayPal collects commissions against tax payments made. However if our tax is included in our final bill as a total item charge or insurance and not segregated as a tax, is it possible that PayPal is collecting commissions from us for our customers' tax payments?

Malcolm

[whoscloset]

Malcolm

Sometimes your suspicious mind scares me! However, you definitely have a point. I've sent numerous messages to both PayPal and eBay requesting that they consider our two-tiered system and never get anything back but a form e-mail. I will, however, continue to harangue them on this one every chance I get as I usually end up covering the taxes out of my profits.

Monique

[amberwoodottawa]

Monique
You cover taxes from your profits?

Monique if I had a big company like I used to own, I would hire yu in a second and give you a position as VP of Sales and Marketing, or put you in charge of Administration but I would keep you out of accounting.

However if you are doing that and still making enough profit from your sales then I would take advantage and advertise that in my listings.

Something like "For all Canadian shoppers, we pay the GST and PST".

You know what Monique, I like that idea so much I might try it with some of my Buy It Now options in new listings.

Thanks for getting my old brain cookin' You seem to have a way of doing that.

Malcolm

[whoscloset]

Malcolm,

You'd have to fight CTC for me. They claim to have an option on my services if I ever decide to return to the corporate world.

I do request that Canadian and Ontario customers pay the appropriate taxes, but often they either don't seem to understand how to go about this or they pay prior to my invoicing them. Usually PayPal picks up the GST when a customer is in Canada (definitely not always!), but only a few customers add the Ontario PST when it should be included. I find that the cost of my time, extra PayPal fees and customer frustration is not worth the amount I will recover if I request that they make up the difference in a separate payment.

Monique

[treasure-pot]

Monique, if you check any of my auctions, I forewarn Cdn. bidders that they are required to add applicable taxes and that, if they make payment by PayPal without the taxes, I will require them to make an additional payment to cover the taxes AND the additional PayPal fees that I incur.

Normally you are not allowed to charge a premium for PayPal use but, as I understand it, if someone makes a short payment you are allowed to recover additional fees paid out as a result of that short payment.

I generally send them a quick email to advise that I will be sending them a PayPal money request to cover the taxes and additional fees that I am required to pay and that I am only too happy to ship promptly upon receipt of payment in full. In most instances I get the additional payment right away and without quibble.

Bill

[amberwoodottawa]

Bill
Same here. I post under Terms in my listings that Ontario residents must ay PST of 8% and all Canadian customers pay GST of 7%.

The other thing I do is I tell customers that I will generate the PayPal invoice. I take full control from the beginning to the end.

If a customer proceeds to generate a PayPal payment without full tax included, I email the customer, nicely tell him that he forgot to nclude the tax and remind him that per our email, we would generate the PayPal invoice to him and advice that a PayPal invoice will be sent for the tax portion for his payment and then I generate a PayPal invoice for the unpaid tax.

I have the goods, I have the majority of the customer's money and nothing gets sent to the customer until I get all that is due from him (or her).

Monique, I have taken on bigger foes than Cdn Tire, so bring them on (you are worth the fight right?)!!!

Malcolm

[mahsauction]

Paypal does provide a limited form of sales tax calculation currently. When a bidder pays for an auction through the Paypal payment link or the Paypal Pay Now button, 7% GST is added if they are from Canada. The biggest problem I can see is for the situations where HST must be collected (or PST in provinces where they have it).

It really would be nice to have a seperate field for sales tax that can be manually adjusted and not fixed to just US sales tax.

I use selling manager so that when I adjust the shipping and handling amount, it adjusts the amount Paypal is expecting. Paypal/selling manager has a field for sales tax but its only for US State taxes. If this field was an open field so I can specifiy whatever sales tax I manually calculate that would be awesome. This would mean I could specify the sales tax before sending out my end of auction notices instead of embedding the sales tax in with my shipping and handling.