Power seller and the Goverment ??

[bare_bright]

Look what I got in my inbox today?

Suite à la récente décision de la Cour d'appel fédérale, il appert que Ebay va devoir remettre à Revenu Canada le nom de tous les powerseller. Nous nous permettons de vous contacter, afin de vous aviser que notre cabinet d'avocats, situé à Québec, prépare un regroupement de powerseller pour se défendre dontre l'impôt.

above is a copy and paste that was sent as a quetion to me on one of my listing's

it basically says ebay has to give the name of all power sellers to the goverment

What's going on here, I know 2004 & 2005 but now?

The email came from this ebayer from eBay Member: louis1258

did anyone else get this?

[rebamdalee]

Hi Rocky,
Report them! If you look at what they have listed they are trying to solicit your business and that's against eBay policy itself.

[bare_bright]

ya I didn't think it was a proper email

Thanks

[bare_bright]

Well I forwarded the email to ebay and I am still confused lol

All they sent me back was basically the same email in english and saying like we all know 2004/2005 and that there still appealing it? I had thought it was a done deal.

you know when I think more about all this tax for selling on ebay, I agree if you run a business & collect the taxes then yes one must file the income.

But selling odds and ends and having to pay tax on it is nut's we are not as free as one thinks, Example I have a M/C Lathe for sale which was given to me and I have it listed on ebay and will most likely get 2 to 3 thousand CA for it, NOW WHY SHOULD i PAY TAX ON THIS SALE?

it will come 2006/2007 once there done with 04/05 We live in a Communist Country , We are not free when it comes to money

I opened a Scarp yard this summer and when I filled my gst the last 1/4 they ran a Audit on me, I have nothing to hide geez, anyway 2 months later I get a Letter from the QC. Goverment that all is ok and they oh me 0.01 Cent lol

Tax Tax Tax really tired of our system

[fenian]

See my comment on the longer thread regarding the CRA. There's still the Supreme Court level, above the Federal Court of Appeal, but I doubt eBay wants to incur the legal cost of going that route.

[craftycatsattic]

I got the same email and actually assumed it was a notification of a class action suit but the email smelled of alterior motive. And so it is. Here's what this guy is selling:

We are a Canadian law office, in Quebec City Canada, in tax litigation specialty. With the recent decision from Frederal Court, Ebay will have to give certain informations regarding PowerSellers.

We offer complete legal aid to provide assistance, to any PowerSeller regarding to start a VOLUNTARY DISCLOSURES PROGRAM with Revenue Canada.

We have over 20 years of experience in canadian tax litigation. Do not hesitate to contact us for any details or informations.

Starting price BTW is $3500 AT AUCTION with a BIN OF $5000! All of this user's feedback is for buying only...no seller feeddback!

First of all, even if you do wind up owing something you've got to be a big gun undeclaring a big amount of money if this legal aid is to be of any benefit to you. Lol I wonder if this ebayer knows how little most of us make!

Second of all, they are not fighting the decision as opposed to the email they sent. They are otherwise offering legal aid to do a voluntary disclosure.

To send this info to Quebec Powersellers is in fact spam and is against eBay policy. Also I would think this is a scam. I think that legislators who must pledge an oath should know well enough that such solicitation is a serious offence and would have more integrity in this matter...so why solicit business in this shady manner unless it's a scam?

Also no ligitimate references. They don't even give the firm name!

As to eBay's response when you reported it...

Absolute classic eBay support gibberish! They obviously did not understand what you were trying to communicate to them.

[miriam@ebay.com]

Hi all,

Well, this is an interesting anecdote. I've passed it over to our Legal team for their review (and subsequent entertainment).

I've also let Customer Support know the situation here, so that they can respond properly to questions about this going forward. And also look into the question of unsolicited spam.

Thanks for flagging this one. Just when I think I've seen it all, there's always something new out there.

Cheers,

Miriam

[miriam@ebay.com]

Me again ...

If anyone still has this email in their inbox, could you please forward to me with full headers? You can send it to miriam@ebay.com.

This would be very helpful in ensuring appropriate action can be taken.

Thanks,

Miriam

[bare_bright]

I sent this letter above that i got in a email & all eBay done was send me a letter back in English & never said anything about the letter

[miriam@ebay.com]

Hi rockyeb220,

Yes, I can see that you didn't get an appropriate response from Customer Support. However, if you can forward me the email you received from the eBay member, I can help make sure that the error doesn't occur again. I work fairly closely with Customer Support, and am happy to bring this to their attention.

Thanks!

Miriam

[canadaspatchking]

Miriam, I think I can speak on behalf of 99% of the people here on the PS board and the other community boards that we will miss your input and greatly regret the decision that eBay big-wigs have made.

Who knows if this would have been even looked at properly considering the canned response that the OP received from eBay "Customer Service".

Thank you.

[ampurtle]

Hmmm... your Compact 8 will bring 1500, 1800 tops. If it had cnc then you would be over 1800.00, but now that you let the cat out of the bag, I've got 500 burning a hole in my pocket. ]:) Why should you pay tax ? you shouldn't, the buyer pays the tax and you pass it on to the government... or not... but either way you will be remitting the tax on the sale if you exceed the allowable amount of taxable sales for GST and PST without remitting. Some one has to pay for the new roof on the 'Big O'

As for the email, I would classify it some where between advertising and solicitation rather than spam given that it was targetted to a small portion of eBay sellers rather than 500,000. One man's spam is another man's ingenious marketting attempt to capture a specific narrow audiance.

If the message came directly to your email account, then that's all it is. If it came via the eBay messaging system, it is a policy violation. The message posted here appears to be only a portion of the email as an auction is involved but not cited and there is no encouragement to bid or buy, just factual statements on the surface.

As for the authenticy of the message, it definately does not pass the smell test for several reasons, not the least of which is the grammatic and syntactic inconsistencies given the short length. It should be pretty easy to verify authenticity in short order.

As for Supreme Court action, eBay has already complied with the court order so it's a little late for that, and it's not worth the cost. If the CRA decision would prejudice eBay, that's another matter, but paying applicable sales taxes when and where required is not going to drasticly alter eBays income and does not imply that eBay is the only target of the CRA.

The bottom line is quite simple, either you chage and remit or you don't.. the issue really boils down to how much are you alled to sell without remitting. If you are under that threshold the whole matter is moot.

The intention of the CRA is to get taxes due from high volume sellers, which is why only Power Sellers have been requested, because they represent large sales numbers and may be classified as a business by CRA rather than a housewife trying to make a few bucks for the family vacation.

If you have sales over $500.oo a week, and you aren't keeping records, start keeping records now.

Now everyone put down their coffee before you make any more holes in the walls :-x

[jakeeangel]

Ditto to #10.

Lovely bunch of morons running customer support yet they fire the people who actually care & seem to be able to read & properly respond to these situations. Idiots! Does anyone actually EVER get an appropriate response from these clowns???

Hey Miriam can you add some special coding to the computers to muck up their fees and oh...I don't know....lower them to $0!! before you go? 😉 LOL

Hey it was worth a shot! LOL

[craftycatsattic]

Oh I guess I'm one in the dark not knowing that the pinks were going. I had heard about it, it seems a long while ago but they were still here so I guess I took that for granted.

If I've ever rained on your parade Miriam I'm sorry. It's just the ramblings of an overworked mother of 3 that is always one step away from her next burnout and tired of banging her head against the wall. At one time I thought ebay was my salvation but eBay has become a harder and harder place to work, both in a monetary sense and also in a soulful sense.

Next year my youngest gets into the school system and it may just well be the right time to take my life back as I've poured so much of it into eBay these last 3 years. Change can be hard...but it can bring us to a better place!

[bare_bright]

As far as the email it was sent through the ebay system, what the person had done was they used ask seller a question and there they pasted there email.

as for sales I average 2000, 3000 per month since 2006

and the worst part is I did not keep any books, "ouch"

At the Moment I own a small Business not related to ebay

"RECYCLING T-BAR" Since it's in QC. I need to use a french name, The nature of my Shop is Buying and selling & Recuperating Metal's and Alloys Like Copper, aluminum etc.

Now what should i do, open another Business for ebay?

on ebay I sell anything from Buckles to gift cards, copper wire etc. Alot of the items I receive as Scrap
and many of times the items are new so I list them

Would it be a better idea to add this income to my current buss. or just register another one & collect tax on my Listings like the GST 5% ?

The point I was trying to make about the Compact M/C was That I bought this M/C from a private person, Paid no Tax
so why should the Government Collect tax on it when I sell it...

The whole System in my eyes is Just not fair, the Government is a form of a Legalized Mafia..

THERE NO DIFFERENT When you really think of it we are not a Free country at all, They decide how much Tax we need to give them, besides Tax was only a temporary measure after the 1 st world War, Now it's just the Mob

Things have gone really bad for me in November, from the crash of the metals on the market & now I received a letter from the Qc. Government to file my 2006 income tax , since I never got around to it "ouch"

This has Happened to me b4 and I was fined 100$ per day for filling late & again this letter says the same as the last, "we are allowed to fine you $100.00 a day if you owe Taxes

I should of learned the first time & I know I will owe Tax & if I add like 40.000$ of sales from ebay and have no records I AM BURNT TOAST

At the Moment I am really struggling to pay my personal bills & keep the business running

I looked around for a Accountant and there like 35$ a hour and thats funds i don't have

really dont know what to do, File Bankruptcy on both? but I guess the taxes owned won't go away since there mobster

Anyways I am just venting, Thanks for your time and Have a Nice day

Tibor

[craftycatsattic]

Sounds like you are in over your head Tibor. You are going to have to deal with this. Looks like you've been sweeping it under the carpet for a while. Stop letting it paralize you and do something about it. You will eventually have to face the music and it's in your best interest to do it sooner than later.

I'm sorry but if your selling 2-3K a month, you're a business and you should be declaring and paying taxes owing. I don't even make that much sales and I've been declaring ever since I've been selling as a business---housewife or not, it's a business. I can't tell you how many people have said to me "oh you sell on ebay...you don't have to declare that do you?". Well, um yes. If you're selling items from your home and getting less for them than you originally paid then that's a garage sale. But if you're sourcing items to resell at a profit, that's a business and you owe taxes on your profits. You should be keeping records of all your sales, inventory purchases, expenses etc. You should be keeping a log of the km's you drive related to your business and receipts for all your vehicule expenses too. Even if you don't have time to do the paperwork, at the very least, put everything in a box until you do.

As for the system being unfair. Sorry, you don't get my understanding there too. Yes there are unfairnesses but this country we live in collects taxes to pay for our infrastructures, our military, our public servants, our health care system and social programs such as Employment Insurance and Welfare. These things are not free and we are all supposed to contribute to them by paying our taxes.

[bare_bright]

Well for 2006, 2007 Income tax I will be filling my sales from ebay and my expenses, it would nice if ebay gave up slips on the total sales etc.

if I request them for all that info do you think they would provide it? as far as I see with seller manager I can only go back 3 months

[miriam@ebay.com]

Hi rockyeb220,

Yes, if you email Customer Support and specify exactly which years you require invoices for, they will send you copies. Please bear in mind that it might take a few days, given how many people are asking for them right now.

canadaspatchking, jakeeangel, craftycatsattic - it's nice to hear from y'all. I'm very pleased to still be here. As many of you know, my job was eliminated in the recent restructure, but I was fortunate enough to move over to another position within eBay. Every now and then, I like to pop back on to the boards to answer a few questions - always good to hear what's happening in everyone's life, eBay and otherwise.

More later ...

Miriam

[recped]

but I was fortunate enough to move over to another position within eBay

Without revealing trade secrets can you tell us a tiny bit about your new area of responsibility.

[bare_bright]

Let's hope we don't have a spy here at the forum's lol

mind ya I got nothing to Hide "ya right" lol

I don't think Miriam well tell us since she would of told us, but ya never know 🙂

Just bugging you Miriam