Anyone have US buyers being charged duties for items under the threshold?

[happy_pigeon]

Hi all—we've received a handful of reports from sellers using global eBay sites, including Canada, that ship to buyers in the US. In these cases, buyers have let their seller know that they were charged duties for their item, even though it was valued at well under the $800 threshold.

We're trying to figure out why this may be happening. Has anyone here received a similar complaint from a buyer recently (within the last 3 months or so)?

[tobey_arih]

I read/told by a US buyer saying Paypal charged a conversion fee when he/she purchased from Canada. This news to me! Why would US-trumperama start this stupidity. All it does is nothing but slowly stop online bizzes from growing or expanding.

Internet tax.. Yah. Why don't you the government actually try to balance your figures and get out of a deficit instead of dumping it on somebody...

[momcqueen]

“I read/told by a US buyer saying Paypal charged a conversion fee when he/she purchased from Canada. This news to me!”

Not news. It’s a service fee for currency conversion and it’s on any and all transactions where the buyer and seller are not dealing in their same currency. As in an
American buying from a Canadian seller listing in CAD or, more likely, a Canadian buyer purchasing a listing from an American in USD.

I made my first online purchase 19 years ago. On eBay and it was an item shipping from the USA. I paid a currency conversion. Every online shopper pays for currency conversion to the company handling the money, regardless of whether it’s PayPal or a credit card or bank. Unless they are fastidious about only ever buying from
Domestic sellers who list and sell only their native dollar.

Your American buyer was self-identifying as a xenophobe. (Also not news.)

[recped]

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@tobey_arih wrote:


Internet tax.. Yah. Why don't you the government actually try to balance your figures and get out of a deficit instead of dumping it on somebody...

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It's NOT an "internet tax" it's sales tax that should be paid but taxpayers have EVADED (not avoided) these taxes.

If you want governments to balance their books one of the things they need to do is actually collect the taxes that are due. In all the States that have a Sales Tax, residents are supposed to declare out of State purchases and pay the required State Sales Tax. It's a line on their State Tax return and a fully compliant return would include this declaration. Unfortunately compliance is estimated to be no more than 10%.

These lost revenues to State & Local governments were small in the days prior to the ecommerce explosion. The lost funds now represent many Billions of Dollars, money that is spent for everything from education to snow removal to security to environmental regulation enforcement and all the other things which are provided by State & Local Government.

Of course there is always the bottom line, governments, even the most efficient need money to operate, those who do inter-State shopping have been evading taxes and any shortfall as a result must be made up by an increase in tax rates for ALL residents including those that only shop locally and have always paid Sales Tax on everything. How is that fair?

The only real issue with this entire "internet tax" (which also applies to transactions that have absolutely nothing to do with the internet) is that in the USA the implementation has been so screwed up because unlike in Canada where a unified national system was developed "States Rights" rule in the USA, trying to get all 50 States to co-ordinate has proven impossible and Constitutionally the Federal Government cannot get involved.

There is a good reason the USA is almost the only "developed" country in the world that does not employ a national value added taxation system. For them it's all about States Rights, interstate co-operation is virtually non-existent.