eBay

sam6000net · ‎07-01-2022

🇨🇦Starting July 1, 2022. eBay Canada started illegally charging taxes on precious metals of purity 999 (Platinum, Gold, Silver) on the buyers side.
This is illegal, per the Canadian law there should be no taxes on precious metals of 999 purity.
I think lawyers should take legal action against eBay Canada.

canadacoinchest · ‎07-01-2022

Just sold Bullion, buyer was taxed. This is illegal.

Taking notes, formal notice to be served - chat transscripts with eBay, audio correspondence with Tax prepresentatives from Revenu Canada confirming tax excemption of precious metals, so on and so forth. I would suggest sellers do the same.

This affects both sellers and buyers, buyers are paying an illegal tax which in turn will deter the customer from purchasing metals on eBay, leaving us sellers in the dark, unsure whether or not eBay will correct this illegal issue.

I'll make **bleep** sure my clients are not paying a CENT in taxes on precious metals.

Blow the whistle on this one folks! Write to a CRA rep, write to eBay, Governor general ...whoever. Stop this illegal taxing!

marnotom! · ‎07-01-2022

The official word from the eBay "tax team" is that it's the transaction that's being taxed under this new scheme, not the item itself.

It's still unclear whether or not a "transaction tax" charge is equivalent to an "item tax" charge.

femmefan1946 · ‎07-03-2022

This thread has more discussion including comments from eBay staffer velvet@ebay.

https://community.ebay.ca/t5/Canadian-Sales-Tax/Illegal-Taxation-at-the-hand-of-eBay-Canada/m-p/4809...

maureenr5700 · ‎07-03-2022

That is kind of scary, more so if I hadn't decided to lessen my eNay ( Freudian typo) shipping too high & does not make sense. Next thing you know we will be paying a transaction tax on top of the item & shipping tax🐒

flipistics · ‎07-03-2022

@maureenr5700 wrote:
That is kind of scary, more so if I hadn't decided to lessen my eNay ( Freudian typo) shipping too high & does not make sense. Next thing you know we will be paying a transaction tax on top of the item & shipping tax🐒

We already DO pay a transaction tax. Sellers pay tax on the eBay fees we're charged (although if you have a tax number you get that back).

maureenr5700 · ‎07-03-2022

Flipistics I am refering to buyers...this is Buyer Central🙈🙉🙊

maureenr5700 · ‎07-03-2022

Marnotom! Could this not spill over to general buying...Isn't all buying on eBay a transaction🐒

marnotom! · ‎07-04-2022

@maureenr5700. a "transaction tax" would only become an add-on to existing "goods tax" with federal legislation, and you can bet that most Canadians would not stand for that and would let their MPs know that pretty clearly.

It's not clear why eBay is referring to "tax on the transaction" rather than "tax on the item" but I have a few guesses.

The way eBay is set up, the "bot" doing the tax calculations doesn't even know what the item is, only its category. As well, eBay is not a retailer but a digital platform that facilitates transactions between buyers and sellers. It doesn't have anything to sell, so the tax it's collecting and remitting to the feds is considered to be on the transaction rather than on the goods.

I'm sure at some point the transaction tax for a Canadian sale of bullion on eBay will mesh up with bullion's zero-rated status. The problem I suspect is that the bot for the third-party software application doing the tax calculation isn't basing its calculations on the bullion sub-category of "coins and paper money" but on the main category itself, which has a lot of taxable stuff in it.

In the meantime, the tax being levied on bullion sales isn't technically illegal because it's not on the bullion itself but on the transaction-related services that eBay provides.

maureenr5700 · ‎07-04-2022

Thank you for replying ... 🍀

reallynicestamps · ‎07-04-2022

@maureenr5700

Sales taxes are transaction taxes.

Buyers pay sales taxes.

reallynicestamps · ‎07-04-2022

Blow the whistle on this one folks! Write to a CRA rep, write to eBay, Governor general ...whoever. Stop this illegal taxing!

The less people know about governance the more likely they are to complain.

Does anyone know why bullion is not taxed?

I understand why children's shoes are not taxed (in BC at any rate) nor books (in ON) but why not bullion? It's not all that useful, mostly used for luxury items plus a very few hi -tech products because it does not oxidise.

flipistics · ‎07-04-2022

@reallynicestamps wrote:

Blow the whistle on this one folks! Write to a CRA rep, write to eBay, Governor general ...whoever. Stop this illegal taxing!

The less people know about governance the more likely they are to complain.

Does anyone know why bullion is not taxed?
I understand why children's shoes are not taxed (in BC at any rate) nor books (in ON) but why not bullion? It's not all that useful, mostly used for luxury items plus a very few hi -tech products because it does not oxidise.

I think it's considered an investment and therefore the sale of it would be subject to capital gains (or losses) but not retail tax.

sam6000net · ‎07-04-2022

🔊Thank you everyone for commenting and your support in this illigal practice by eBay Canada.
I wrote formal complaint letters to eBay CEO "Jamie Iannone" and North America director "Jordan Sweetnam" and mailed the 2 letters to this address:
Ebay Inc.
2025 Hamilton Avenue
San Jose, California 95125
USA

Please keep esclating this.

sam6000net · ‎07-26-2022

Update: I got contacted on July 25th by eBay executive team regarding my complaint letter and they asked me to provide screenshots, I did sent them 3 examples.
So hopefully they will do something regarding this.
I will keep you updated.

revygurl · ‎07-17-2023

It's been roughly a year now... just curious, what ended up happening in your situation?

marnotom! · ‎07-17-2023

@revygurl, sometimes it helps to tag users in dormant threads if they haven’t posted elsewhere for a while and they’ve chosen not to receive notifications when their thread has responses.

Let’s also hope this thread doesn’t get shut down due to its age before @sam6000net sees your post.