eBay

leslieroberts · ‎07-01-2022

Well folks,

Here is my rant. Some people were caught off guard on this collecting of taxes by eBay Canada. Personally my spending will dramatically decrease on this site as will probably many collectors, with transition to other sites where this is not happening. COMC only charges Canadian buyers 5% GST on their purchases. I fully understand why this is in effect now but what I have a hard time with is the total sale now include the total taxes collected by ebay which means you are paying more out in the long run.

Ebay effectivly brought in another significant rate increase due to this on top of the one that came into effect the last month or so. Sellers in my category are now charged 12% on the total sale which now includes the taxes, less the 10% discount for top rated sellers.

Why are we paying fees on the sales total including the taxes and then we are taxed again on the fees they are charging us. Effectivly we are paying tax on tax. Its becoming not worth the effort to sell on this platform between the store fees, sellers fees, taxes on the fees, lack of seller supports and on and on. You will loose more money selling something to someone living in ON than to someone in AB. How does that make sense!!!!

Tired of this **bleep**.

femmefan1946 · ‎07-02-2022

with transition to other sites where this is not happening.

This is a federal law and applies to any venue grossing more than $30K annually.

COMC only charges Canadian buyers 5% GST on their purchases.

COMC is a Washington based site, not a Canadian one, but buyers there will still have to pay Canadian duty and sales taxes when the item cross the border.

Under the 2021 NAFTA agreement, the duty free allowance on imports from the USA is $150 and the tax-free allowance is $40. Neither of these should be charged by the seller unless he is registered to collect and remit Canadian duty and taxes. (The Global Shipping Program is registered, for example.)
And Canada Post charges a $9.95 service fee to deliver imports and collect those fees.

If you are in Alberta, you wouldn't be paying any provincial taxes, of course, since there isn't one.

The applicable taxes are based on the location of the buyer, not the seller.

Interesting that COMC has enough Canadian business to register to collect Canadian taxes. I hope that is indicated on your bills. There should be a GST registration number.

Managed Payments charges the seller based on the total payment made by the buyer. This includes selling price, shipping costs, applicable sales taxes, and occasionally other costs like international credit card fees.

Paypal did the same, but it was less transparent because eBay billed monthly and Paypal billed on each transaction. The (default) weekly payments from MP are easier to see where the charges come from.

And we pay taxes on our eBay fees because those fees are subject to goods and services taxes, some federal, some provincial.

ericsells75 · ‎07-03-2022

We’re the 482 other exact same posts on this forum not informative enough that another one was needed?

mrdutch1001 · ‎07-03-2022

As a seller, you were already acquainted with the taxes applied to buyer's online purchases for those buyers from the USA, UK, and other countries,etc . Buyers in those countries are well aware of paying taxes on their purchases. The new Canadian taxation for online purchases by Canadian buyers will be no different...Canadian buyers will accept, adapt, adjust to this new online taxation on eBay and other selling sites just as they already do for other online purchases from say Amazon, Wal-Mart, and other businesses that have an online presence.In fact this online taxation is no different to buyers than going to their local retail outlets where they already pay the applicable taxes.

BTW, this Canadian online taxation is not about eBay, you will encounter it on other selling sites as well... also, and perhaps you have never traveled to other provinces or other countries? > where YOU as a buyer would have paid taxes on any purchases where the applicable taxes were required to be paid by the buyer.

brettjet38 · ‎07-03-2022

just another...

...rant

AND, @leslieroberts "Some people were caught off guard on this collecting of taxes by eBay Canada. "

If you already did not know

This TAX collection system was planned by your Canadian Government, not eBay! It was in the 2021 Canadian Budget, you did read it right, as a voter you should have...

Also, it applies to all "online marketplaces" Amazon, Etsy, and all others.

So good luck going elsewhere...

marnotom! · ‎07-03-2022

@leslieroberts wrote:

COMC only charges Canadian buyers 5% GST on their purchases.

I'm echoing @femmefan1946's comment to the effect that a company operating out of Washington state and shipping to Canada is going to be playing under a different set of rules. However, if they're charging tax up-front, you shouldn't have to pay anything else upon receipt. It sounds to me as though they're using a pre-clearance scheme similar to that of the Global Shipping Program.

Having said that, I think it's more accurate to say that COMC only charges GST/HST, as I strongly suspect that Canadian buyers from provinces where HST is charged would be charged HST rather than GST.

As for the fees, I'm guessing that if you were paid the amount you pay in eBay fees to sell something for someone else, you wouldn't find it worth your while unless the item is significantly valued.

xman-77 · ‎07-03-2022

Canadian buyers will accept, adapt, adjust to this new online taxation on eBay.....lol u must be kidding..... you are wrong, ebay is already in decline and buyers will move on to different market places where are no taxes, i have already stopped shopping, cause now everything on ebay is more expensive, there is no reason to shop here

brettjet38 · ‎07-03-2022

What market Places? Any place that makes over $30,000.00CDN in sales has no choice other than to charge and collect the tax, this is not an eBay thing, it's a Government thing, put in place by the people you elected and put into office...

...if you have an issue contact your local MP.

BTW - This is actually a worldwide thing, The UK, USA, Australia, and a whole slew of others already have a similar tax or shortly will.

mrdutch1001 · ‎07-03-2022

according to all reports in these forums over the years, "ebay is already in decline ", has been dead or dying for the past 12 years or more...yet still here!! along with its millions of sellers...

Buyers will find out very quickly that there will be very few worthy online marketplaces where there are no taxes(I guess if sellers want to go to those lesser known sites that have little and/or 0 traffic or want to rely on their local marketplace,etc) that's their choice, but buyers will indeed carry on....some buyers may longer shop on eBay, but most likely won't be because of the taxes; but more so because they can't find what they are looking for on eBay. Any larger selling site will be required to collect those Canadian taxes; just as they are for the USA states' "internet" taxes... so just where do you think these buyers are going to go? some little known site that they know nothing about? Highly doubt it! Buyers will go with what they know and where they know they will find whatever it is they are shopping for...

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎07-03-2022

@mrdutch1001 wrote:
according to all reports in these forums over the years, "ebay is already in decline ", has been dead or dying for the past 12 years or more...yet still here!! along with its millions of sellers...
Buyers will find out very quickly that there will be very few worthy online marketplaces where there are no taxes(I guess if sellers want to go to those lesser known sites that have little and/or 0 traffic or want to rely on their local marketplace,etc) that's their choice, but buyers will indeed carry on....some buyers may longer shop on eBay, but most likely won't be because of the taxes; but more so because they can't find what they are looking for on eBay. Any larger selling site will be required to collect those Canadian taxes; just as they are for the USA states' "internet" taxes... so just where do you think these buyers are going to go? some little known site that they know nothing about? Highly doubt it! Buyers will go with what they know and where they know they will find whatever it is they are shopping for...

With these Government changes to how tax is being applied they've created a 2 headed monster.

In theory for a Canadian buyer shopping within Canada between shipping/tax and applicable fuel surcharges it has become uneconomical to shop between provinces. The lesser of 2 evils would be to buy from a US seller and deal with GSP with its high shipping costs and slow delivery and the potential of customs charges unless you are lucky to find a seller that ships direct using USPS? Does this mean going forward anything moving from USPS to CP will get dinged for taxes? Kinda your new normal vs luck of draw.

From US perspective it's almost cheaper for US buyers to buy from Canadians now if they want avoid paying State tax. How many US buyers end up getting charged customs costs? Probably few and far between. Defeats the purpose of "shop locally" for those buyers.

-Lotz

mrdutch1001 · ‎07-03-2022

Speaking for myself, none of this changes anything for me as a seller or as a buyer>>> as a seller am an occasional/infrequent online seller who sells a variety of items across 4 selling sites (2 of which have implemented the new Canadian taxation process); and as a buyer, 90% of my online buying is now with Amazon Prime and Amazon has had the Canadian taxation process in place for the past year); otherwise this old-fashioned senior is mostly a buy locally kind of person and a sell as much as possible locally kind of person.

ricarmic · ‎07-03-2022

@lotzofuniquegoodies the US folks pay the (IST) taxes no matter what country they bought the item from, even from us Canadians.

That's the number 1 question I got asked when the IST came in, how come "you" in Canada are charging me the IST....

byto253 · ‎07-03-2022

The thing is that Canada has an HST exclusion for vendors with sub-$30k sales, and this legistlation tramples all over that intent. The legislation is acting as if eBay itself is the vendor. That is where the worldwide comparisions do not pan out.

recped · ‎07-03-2022

@byto253 wrote:
The thing is that Canada has an HST exclusion for vendors with sub-$30k sales, and this legistlation tramples all over that intent. The legislation is acting as if eBay itself is the vendor. That is where the worldwide comparisions do not pan out.

Sure they do, it's exactly the same with the US Marketplace Facilitator laws. Remote sellers in the US have quite high exemption amounts before they are required to register, collect and remit sales Tax in States where they do not have a presence. In many States the exemption amount for direct sales is $50,000.

"What else could I do? I had no trade so I became a peddler" - Lazarus Greenberg 1915
- answering Trolls is voluntary, my policy is not to participate.

darak10 · ‎07-04-2022

It'll be interesting to see if it changes much. You'd think it would stop customers from buying but Im not sure it will. I recently increased my airmail rate to Australia by $3 to accomodate the ever increasing fuel levies and I thought they'd go poof, but nope....I have had more Aussie customers since I bumped up the rate than Ive had in the last six months. Makes zero sense to me but there it is, in black and white.

Customs duties only apply to American customers if they buy more than $800 US in a single day. They are an outlier in the world on this one, so US shoppers rarely ever pay a cent in customs. Everywhere else in the world is like $20. So you are right, it is advantageous for Americans to buy from Canadian sellers, but they are still hit with their state internet sales tax as thats collected by ebay. What I've noticed with US customers is that they tend to thin out once the dollar hits 80 cents. From what I see they largely overlook us as sellers as it seems they see us as a 'discount' 'last resort' type option for buying items, unless of course we have exactly what they are looking for.

The sites that dont charge tax, good luck finding them - they either dont exist or will soon be forced to comply with federal tax legislation if they choose to sell into a particular market. Its over for these folk, governments now see how much revenue they are missing out on and they are correcting it.

The VAT in EU and UK acts like an effective tariff on our goods and drive customers away. My UK sales are now practically nothing, and my EU sales are slightly above that. But sales from UK and EU to Canadian buyers will continue to be strong because so many US sellers charge us obscene shipping rates. I've noticed in the last few weeks in lieu of the German packaging law that more and more German sellers are popping up in my searches, with very low shipping rates, usually a third or half of what it cost (or used to cost, for those of us who no longer sell into that market ) for me to ship there. All these retailers that have been around for awhile, but I hadnt noticed any of these guys before selling into the Canadian market. Wonder what this is about.

Regardless, Canada has been so slow on the uptake that it will likely take them years to figure out what is going on here and implement their own tariff style "VAT" on overseas purchases to drive domestic e-commerce spending back to Canadian sellers, if they even do that. Bottom line the headwinds to succeeding in ecommerce in Canada are really too strong for most to endure, and our government do not even know that the issue exists let alone that its a problem affecting the viability of Canadian small business.

brettjet38 · ‎07-06-2022

...that is the point the entire Canadain Tax system is slowly being revamped, the entire tax code will be changing as 2025 economic protocols come into force. This is all about the ability of the CRA to trace "Incomes"...

...gotta pay for those Basic Incomes that are just another global "issue" away.