eBay

gwrocen · ‎11-30-2019

Does anyone know what the US and Canadian laws would be on this? Can eBay legally deposit and withdraw the tax, that eBay is required to collect, through MY PayPal account? I am really bothered by this. We do not have a nexus in the US and are not registered to collect taxes from anyone. I would like this to be spelled out very clearly.

Can anyone help on this?

Thanks.

gwrocen · ‎02-20-2020

@clemowbooks wrote:
Is there a part of Goods AND SERVICES that you don't understand?
Value Added taxes like the GST tax both the product and the service. You pay a sales tax on the labour when you hire a company to fix your roof.
And there is (often) a sales tax on a service like shipping.
The old Ontario sales tax -pre GST- did not tax on labour, but the newer GST does and I believe so does the current ON HST.

@clemowbooks

FYI @clemowbooks this post is NOT about GST or HST or any other Canadian Tax.

Were you being cocky or patronizing when you posted the above comment?

Did you go back to the beginning and read all the posts on page one

to see what this thread is about?

If you wish to talk about GST it may be a good idea to start your own post about GST.

lady.stark · ‎02-29-2020

@clemowbooks wrote:
The only problem with the Internet Sales Tax is that eBay is not paying the Paypal fees for money they are passing through our PP accounts.

These are new taxes and there is a settling in period, during which errors and omissions will be identified and corrected, like sales tax being charged on clothing in a state where clothing is not taxed, which was reported on dotCOM this week.

For all our sake and bottom line, I hope you are right. But since when does eBay make a change that will force *them* to pay their own fees? If the day arrive, I will chant "Hallelujah" with all my heart.

gwrocen · ‎03-07-2020

@lady.stark wrote:
@clemowbooks wrote:
The only problem with the Internet Sales Tax is that eBay is not paying the Paypal fees for money they are passing through our PP accounts.

These are new taxes and there is a settling in period, during which errors and omissions will be identified and corrected, like sales tax being charged on clothing in a state where clothing is not taxed, which was reported on dotCOM this week.
For all our sake and bottom line, I hope you are right. But since when does eBay make a change that will force *them* to pay their own fees? If the day arrive, I will chant "Hallelujah" with all my heart.

Just as I mentioned before.............................

This topic was hot for a while and then people just gave up trying to get changes and so now sellers live with the unfair PayPal fees sellers have to pay.

eBay and the US states should pay for their own fees for the tax money that goes into their pockets.

I have been thinking .....and this is hypothetical and highly unlikely...........but..what would happen if I, as a seller, would register to get sales tax numbers from the US states and would be the one who collects the taxes from my buyers? I would not meet the annual threshold for sales in any US state before sales tax would have to be applied. As a result, no tax would need to be collected by me as a seller.

What do American sellers with registered sales tax numbers do? Do they collect the taxes or does eBay still collect the tax? Or are buyers double taxed? There has to be a workaround for this. The same rule would apply for a Canadian seller with a registered US Sales tax number.

The bottom line still is that eBay, the billionaire company, is taking advantage of hard working sellers.

mrdutch1001 · ‎03-07-2020

As other selling venues are also collecting the internet USA sales tax, and if those venues are also using PayPal as a payment processor, the same is faced there IF those venues don't have an alternate workaround so that those taxes aren't funneled through PayPal. Currently my other online selling venue must have their own workable way of collecting that tax as the USA sales tax is not showing as part of the PayPal transaction. I do not know how some of these larger selling venues are handling the collection of the USA internet sales taxes, but it certainly would be interesting to know what their process is...

I do know that the selling venue Bonanza is in partnership with something called "TaxCloud" and that is their method of how that selling venue will collect and remit sales tax on seller's behalf for all transactions where the buyer is located in the those states from where that sales tax must be collected.

marnotom! · ‎03-07-2020

@gwrocen wrote:
I have been thinking .....and this is hypothetical and highly unlikely...........but..what would happen if I, as a seller, would register to get sales tax numbers from the US states and would be the one who collects the taxes from my buyers? I would not meet the annual threshold for sales in any US state before sales tax would have to be applied. As a result, no tax would need to be collected by me as a seller.

What do American sellers with registered sales tax numbers do? Do they collect the taxes or does eBay still collect the tax? Or are buyers double taxed? There has to be a workaround for this. The same rule would apply for a Canadian seller with a registered US Sales tax number.

eBay has stated repeatedly that sellers "don't have to do anything" when it comes to collecting and remitting US state sales taxes for sales of items delivered to states where these taxes apply. So sellers registered to collect sales tax from states that collect internet sales tax would simply modify their tax tables so that they wouldn't be double-taxing their buyers.

Remember, because eBay is a Marketplace Facilitator, the states are collecting taxes from the venue, not the seller. Sellers getting state sales tax numbers would not make any difference. The state sales taxman still wants his cut, and he'll get it through eBay.

I think sellers are realizing that while paying PayPal fees on taxes that they don't collect themselves is a pain in the patoot, a bigger pain in the patoot would be an alternative such as collecting the taxes themselves and remitting them to eBay so that they can be remitted to the states in question what with the associated time and effort required in number-crunching and bookkeeping.

femmefan1946 · ‎03-07-2020

The minimum wage in BC is 23c a minute.

Your time is worth at least that.

An eBay seller would have to register with 37 states and do the monthly paperwork for 37 states and remit the taxes collected for 37 states.

How much are we actually paying to Paypal at 3.4% of tax collected by eBay?

Since January first about $112US has passed through my account as taxes. Which means I've paid Paypal about $3.80US.(17 minutes of my time.) in fees.

But that reflects some $2000+US in sales.

gwrocen · ‎03-08-2020

@marnotom! wrote:
eBay has stated repeatedly that sellers "don't have to do anything" when it comes to collecting and remitting US state sales taxes for sales of items delivered to states where these taxes apply.

eBay is not being honest when they say that "sellers DON'T HAVE TO DO ANYTHING" when it comes to collecting and remitting US sales taxes.

eBay is forcing sellers to pay PayPal fees on the collection of those taxes.

That to me does not show that "sellers don't have to do anything".

eBay is the one who has to collect sales taxes.

I don't have to collect sales taxes.

Why should I have to pay fees on taxes I am not collecting?

eBay should look after their own fees.

tyler@ebay

zee-chan · ‎03-08-2020

Is it worth spending three months of headache on this OP?

pjcdn2005 · ‎03-08-2020

I think that tyler has already commented more than once on your many posts about this. Do you think that bringing it up again is going to change anything?

gwrocen · ‎03-08-2020

@zee-chan wrote:
Is it worth spending three months of headache on this OP?

Absolutely!

When my foreign buyers** have to pay more than US$20.00 in state taxes on purchases that they made from me and then I have to pay PayPal fees on that tax amount, yes it is worth it!

**foreign buyers from Japan, Thailand, Taiwan, Germany, etc.

gwrocen · ‎03-08-2020

@pjcdn2005 wrote:
I think that tyler has already commented more than once on your many posts about this. Do you think that bringing it up again is going to change anything?

Tyler's comments have not proven anything. It's the usual rhetoric.

(definition or rhetoric: language designed to have a persuasive or impressive effect on its audience, but often regarded as lacking in sincerity or meaningful content.)

Probably won't change anything but I don't like the complacency surrounding this issue.

eBay's process is wrong - a billionaire company taking advantage of small sellers like myself.

zee-chan · ‎03-08-2020

Just so you know, most international buyer has been paying taxes on purchases over the years anyway, because the item is not available in their home country. I have been paying Japan taxes for my Japan purchases since 10+ years ago. Of course I don't want to pay those taxes, but they are not available in Canada, so I just accept them as part of the cost of acquiring the item. Japan's tax rate has increased over the years to 8% and now 10%. When I make these purchases I accepted them as part of the total cost of acquiring something that's not available in Canada and I don't spend time getting frustrated over the tax. Over the years I'm sure I have paid over a couple thousands of Japan tax (including when I travel there).

If your buyers can't accept paying US taxes when they're acquiring something overseas, perhaps they should stick to buying local. And if you don't like paying PayPal fees on that tax and you can't accept this as part of the cost of doing business on eBay, then perhaps you should go sell elsewhere.

I admittedly was annoyed about this change at first, but after a while I just shrugged and got over it. I kept my prices the same despite this tax fee and the annual Canada Post rate increase, because I don't want to waste my time getting annoyed over it. There are just much more other things in life to worry about.