Bought an item in the U.S. from Canada mailed it to my customer in the U.S. EBay took $17 for tax?

[mr.oldtoysandstuff]

Why am I charged tax when I purchased an item in the U.S. and sold it to a customer in the U.S.?

I was stung with $17 tax on a sale of $215!!

It's just not worth trying to make a living on EBay anymore.

They have all kinds of ways to squeeze your profit into oblivion!

EBay takes their chunks - PayPal takes their chunk and perhaps the most maddening is our banks charge us a fee to deposit OUR money in THEIR banks which they use to make investments to make huge profits! How is this even legal? Or moral?

If you take a good look at all the various outrageous fees banks scam from us, you'd be sick!

How does our "elected" government allow this to happen? We're pretty much forced to use these banks, and we're paying for the privilege! 

The reason banks were established was to keep people's money/gold safe, and to engage in a mutually beneficial arrangement where the people agree to let banks pool their money with the other depositors, so the bankers could invest, and make a profit.

The people with accounts were paid a percentage of the profits. That was a sound arrangement, where we are investors and therefore we get a share of the profit.

If banks tried to establish themselves from the beginning where they would charge people for using their bank, and charge them for withdrawling their money while using the people's money for huge profit, they would have been run out of town with a full 12 gauge load of rock salt up their asses!

I've sold to customers in the U.S. many times and never was charged tax! With all the EBay PayPal and Bank fees, adding tax which the customer should pay if anyone, makes it foolish to even use EBay.

I made 90 cents "profit" after EBay took $17 for tax. Why does it make any sense to use EBay?

About ten years ago, you could make a pretty good living selling from EBay, but then, just as every other company, when they get big, and wealthy, there's never enough and they sneak in small "fees" here and there, and then one day you realise "hey, I'm paying EBay more in fees than I make in profit! 

A LOT of EBay sellers started getting out once they started sneaking all the fees in and bleeding the profit margins, and I am very seriously contemplating getting out myself.

My profit was about $20 on this item, they taxed me over $17.

Remember when gas stations started getting self serve pumps...you know to benefit the customers by eliminating staff who used to run out, get the nozzle in, check your fluids, and wash your windows?

Ya, it was going to awesome because all that money they saved not having to pay employees to pump gas would be deducted from the gas prices! Ya, right. Not one single customer saved one single dime, in fact, the price of gas started to skyricket and it's still going up!

EVERY major corporation plays us like that! Remember "pay TV"? When you would pay a small monthly fee, and get to watch TV with NO commercials? Ya, how did that work for ya?

Very slowly but steadily we started seeing short commercials here and there, then more came out, then they became longer then they were even longer than ever.

So we pay the "pay TV" bill and we have tons of commercials!

How outrageous is the Canadian internet provider monopoly? We tend to live in a walking coma where we get lied to by big corporations and gradually but surely service slides downhill and fees rise up.

How the hell did we let this happen? How is paying an average household with TV phone/cell and internet of $400 monthly OK? We're being burned from all directions folks, and our spineless politicians will never upset their gravy train, even when banks charge us for making them outrageous profits, even when self serve gas keeps going higher and higher, then we get a Crime Minister who dumps on our bed adding "carbon tax" BS to our endless dwindling money where MOST Canadian homes are operating from paycheck to paycheck, and our "elected" political representatives keep piling fees up.

I swear if I hear another arrogant politician tell me "it's less than a cup of coffee a day" YA, Now I can't afford a cup of coffee asswax! It's not one cup, it's a hundred cups of coffee every day!

AHHH! Rant complete, I'm outta here!

EBay, you can't swipe money from people who drop off your platform.

Wouldn't it be awesome if just one CEO would take a stand for Canadians and actually cut fees to a reasonable level? Never gonna happen folks, there's never enough for the elite.

Jack Von Bronzesnake

[ypdc_dennis]

Interesting rant -- but sales tax on ebay sales going to USA states that have implemented internet sales tax is not new. And it applies to more marketplaces than just eBay.

The Buyer pays the sales tax the Seller does not get charged sales tax on the purchase.

The Seller does get nicked by paypal fees for processing the tax money.

-..l-

[mr.oldtoysandstuff]

Thanks")
So the buyer should have been charged the $17? WHy did EBay take it from me?
I got smoked with EBay fees as well as the $17 tax. I'll give EBay a call and see what they say.

Rants do release a lot of steam!
Take care Dennis, I appreciate the info.
Jack

[ricarmic]

If you check your PAYPAL transaction, you will see that you "got" the tax money and "lost" the tax money instantaneously.

Ebay simply uses your PAYPAL account to funnel through the taxes. You never have the tax $$$ in your posession.

Note though that you do pay your paypal fees on the tax so you're paying 3% fees on the $17 = so you did lose 51c to PAYPAL land for eBay to collect the taxes.

There are lonnnnngggg threads about this since it started back in november.....

[mr.oldtoysandstuff]

D'OH! Ya, the fog has lifted, I see the light!

Thank you Dennis.
Jack

[femmefan1946]

Banks borrow money from their customers at a low rate of interest and loan it to other customers at a high rate of interest.

They keep the difference.

Banks are in business to make money.

[lady.stark]

Can I ask where you saw that $17 of taxes? I'm a bit confused. Was it on the item you bought? On the item you sold? On the invoice to the customer? Or in PayPal?

[mr.oldtoysandstuff]

I understand that, I don't begrudge any business making profit, that's how capitalism works.

My grip is being charged fees to deposit money in their banks, and paying fees to withdraw money, and being charged monthly fees on top of it all.

If someone asked to borrow $1,000 from you, and you agreed, how would you react if they sent you a bill for $5 for putting your money in their hand? Then how would you react if they sent you another bill for $5 for paying you back $990 of the $1,000 you lent them? Then how would you react if they sent you another bill for $15 for "handling" fees?

This is exactly what the banks are doing. They'll be crafty and pay you a dividend which works out to less than they the fees they charge you. Of course, you may be wealthy and unaware of this scam, because wealthy people who deposit large sums of money in the banks have a very different experience. However, today a majority of Canadian families live paycheck to paycheck and the banks with their puppets in government are the reason so many people are suffering financially today.

How do new young couples afford to buy even a tiny house in Toronto for a million dollars with interest? Banks, real estate, and big insurance corps are all owned by the same mega wealthy elites, and it's never enough for them.

I'm not knocking capitalism, I love the concept, it beats the hell out of socialism even with these elite bankers scamming all us "little people" If we had honest politicians, (oxymoron) we would have a fair system where banks would stop scamming their income source and pay them a fair interest rate at the end of each month as they did when I was a young man working in Toronto. Every month I had a little bit more than the month before.

Today, I have a lot less than I had the month before.
That's fact.
Take care

[sylviebee]

"""" My grip is being charged fees to deposit money in their banks, and paying fees to withdraw money, and being charged monthly fees on top of it all.""""

I totally agree with that, and the list goes on, and on, and on.

The banks stick it to us every chance they get and only back down when they're caught.

Remember Wells Fargo?   They got caught but all banks do the same kind of thing all the time and get away with it.

My bank recently charged me $200 for a signature and I've had problems with them all my life.  I could go on but it annoys me too much and there's no point.

If they can get away with it, (and they can and do) they will.

[mr.oldtoysandstuff]

I've had to keep a close eye on my account ever since I saw they'd been taking an extra $10 each month, and the first time I didn't catch it until they'd done it for five months, and when I went in to get them to put the money back, clowntown tells me "we'll refund it this time but if it happens again and you don't catch it right away we can't refund the whole amount.

He did not enjoy being made to look like a complete fool in front of the customers and his coworkers because I flipped on the arrogant dolt king.
Imagine somebody robs their bank and a judge says "well because he wasn't caught until he robbed your bank five times we can't find him guilty?

Boiled my blood! You're right, they get away with it because they can.

[mr.oldtoysandstuff]

I'm in Canada, and I sold an item which I bought from a U.S. distributor and had the distributor ship it directly to the customer's U.S. address.

So, the customer sent payment for the item, I bought the item from a U.S. distributor online and had them ship it direct to the customer's U.S, address.

Then I went logged into PayPal and saw a $17 tax fee was deducted. A poster here "Dennis" explained it to me this way

"If you check your PAYPAL transaction, you will see that you "got" the tax money and "lost" the tax money instantaneously.

Ebay simply uses your PAYPAL account to funnel through the taxes. You never have the tax $$$ in your posession.

Note though that you do pay your paypal fees on the tax so you're paying 3% fees on the $17 = so you did lose 51c to PAYPAL land for eBay to collect the taxes.

There are lonnnnngggg threads about this since it started back in november....."

So I didn't actually pay the $17 tax, the customer did. I did have to pay a fee on the tax which was $8 I was still missing about $10 after I accounted that $8.

I had a look at the distributer charge and saw the price was hiked. I hadn't bothered to check last night to see if the distributor had raised the price, so my fault.
I'm gonna have to raise my prices across the board because 90 cents profit on a $200 plus sale doesn't cut it.

It's getting too expensive to sell on EBay, I'm seriously thinking about whether it's worth it for me.

Hope that wasn't to confusing.
Jack Von Bronzesnake

[pjcdn2005]

So I didn't actually pay the $17 tax, the customer did. I did have to pay a fee on the tax which was $8 I was still missing about $10 after I accounted that $8.

Paypal fees on a US transaction are 3.7% so fees on $17 would be .63.    Paypal fees on the $215 sale would have been around $8.

[mr.oldtoysandstuff]

Hey pjc

Ya, that's what is was. I appreciate the help from everybody who replied, thank you pjc

Jack Von Bronzesnake