Ebay started collecting sales tax on Canadian sales on July 1/22 - ie Q3/22.
I am a registered business located in Canada.
Until now I have been filing quarterly sales tax returns with Revenue Canada. There are two main parts to the GST/HST return.
1. Those returns record the GST I have spent on business activities - (inventory for resale, etc). This GST I am entitled to have returned to me.
And
2. The GST return also records the GST/HST I have collected on sales. This is the GST I owe to Revenue Canada.
1 is subtracted from 2.
If the result is positive I send that amount to Revenue Canada.
If the result is negative Revenue Canada sends me that amount as a refund.
My question is this.
When Ebay collects the sales tax, I havn't recieved anything during the quarter. Sales tax has been paid on items I've sold, but that money is not in my possession.
The GST/HST sales tax form requires I enter the total GST / HST for the period (ie collected). As far as I can tell, there is no way to indicate that this money is not in my possession (ie it was collected by ebay and is held by ebay). If I put the actual amount of sales tax paid (collected by ebay), then I loose out on money that should be refunded to me. If I enter zero dollars as the GST/HST for the period (which is how much I have recieved at my end), then I will get the correct refund, but I will have entered an incorrect GST / HST sales tax number.
All business sellers are going to experience this problem with their Q3/22 Canadian sales tax return.
What is the solution?
