HST on transactions

[hockeyedmonton]

Heads up sellers!

Just got off the phone with an EBay employee, and no answer to my question.

Excample: I made a (sale) transaction, on which EBay charged me a fee of $4.00 total.

Then added 13% HST, which should be $0.52, but surprise, surprise, their calculation came to $0.54??

Doesn't bother me much personally, but if EBay has this tiny advantage on every transaction, it adds up for EBay. This slight miscalculation seems to be on every transaction.

EBay is looking into it, and find out if it's a "glitch"!

Funny how most "glitches" are in EBay's favor.

Check your transaction fee's folks.

Hope to get an explanation soon.

Regards

[recped]

Maybe you could post a screenshot of the fee details.

If eBay is incorrectly calculating the GST/HST it doesn't mean they are putting it in their pocket, more likely any amount they charge is being remitted to CRA (even if it's the wrong amount).

[femmefan1946]

Keep in mind that the phone rep you spoke to on a Sunday was in the Philippines, and while she probably has a cousin in Edmonton, there is no reason to believe she has any idea about Canadian sales tax standards.

But at least you didn't get some minimum wage subcontractor in Utah, who doesn't have any cousins in Canada and is blurry on the concept of "Canada" and "sovereign nation".

[marnotom!]

I could be wrong, but I have this recollection that someone observed that eBay Canada's calculation of GST/HST on seller fees is a little, uh, unorthodox.  My memory is along the lines that HST is calculated on each component that's being billed rather than on the total itself.  Because of rounding, this can up the total HST calculated.

So, say that $4.00 owing was made up of a 75 cent charge, a $1.50 charge and a $1.75 charge.

A 75 cent charge would attract 9.75 cents HST, rounded up to 10 cents

A $1.50 charge would attract 19.5 cents HST, rounded up to 20 cents

A $1.75 charge would attract 22.75 cents HST, rounded up to 23 cents

That would make the total HST owing 53 cents, rather than the 52 cents owing on a straight $4.00 charge.

Hope I'm making sense here.

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

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@femmefan1946 wrote:

Keep in mind that the phone rep you spoke to on a Sunday was in the Philippines, and while she probably has a cousin in Edmonton, there is no reason to believe she has any idea about Canadian sales tax standards.

But at least you didn't get some minimum wage subcontractor in Utah, who doesn't have any cousins in Canada and is blurry on the concept of "Canada" and "sovereign nation".

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I think you summed it up perfectly. Going forward I am just going to call PayPal in Scotland when I have an eBay issue on dot ca. I won't get the answer I need but it will be a less stressful conversation in the end. And it includes a fun accent to make heads or tails out of. 

https://www.uv.es/anglotic/accents_of_english/02/examples_of_scottish_english.html

(check example 3)

🤣

-Lotz

[femmefan1946]

I don't need to check the link- my family's native tongue is Doric Scots and I have a Glaswegian BIL.