The only people who should be charging tax on used goods in Canada are businesses. If people are selling their used goods, they are not required to charge tax. The only exception is automobiles. A private sale of an automobile requires tax before you can register that vehicle, but that tax is paid directly to the government by the buyer.
Generally the sale of what is referred to as personal use property is not subject to GST/HST. Personal use property is an item that people own and use for their own personal use. If you sell a used personal use item then the transactions is generally not subject to GST/HST. There are, however, important exceptions to this rule. One relates to the “small supplier” threshold. If the sales of personal use property in a given year exceed $30,000 then you are required to be a GST/HST registrant and you are required to charge and remit GST/HST. The second relates to commercial property. The personal use exemption does not apply to the sale of used commercial property, which is generally always subject to GST/HST.
https://www.northernpolicy.ca/article/tax-implications-of-the-secondhand-economy-4065.asp
Thrift stores, Pawn shops, all of these places are businesses, and must charge tax. They have a GST number these taxes are paid under. If an Ebay seller is doing it as a business, they must be collecting taxes.
Ebay collecting taxes on behalf of the average joe who sells one or two things a year, is extremely shady. There's no business number it's being associated with. What Ebay is doing, is they're collecting taxes, and since there's no business associated with it, they're going to apply those taxes to their own tax debt. Which is as shady as it can get.
I don't buy from Ebay that often, but I was shocked when I went to buy a graphics card from a private seller, and there was tax being charged. Then I noticed their "new policy".
Ebay is dead in Canada.
