US Tax & International Fees

[masterpcs2011]

I'm a Canadian seller & it's just crazy Ebay charges a Final Value Fee on Taxes Collected by Ebay "on my behalf' lol for US buyers + charged HST on the Final Value Fee, not to mention a International Seller Fee when buyers address is outside of Canada Don't look at it as a small amount here or there, take a look at the cost for a year.

I understand Final Value Fees on item & shipping as I control the price BUT I do not control the Tax fee grab & it is sooooooooooooo unfair. Not making enough $$$ of of sellers I guess. From now on I will only sell in Canada.

[marnotom!]

Your competitors will probably thank you for drawing more US buyers to their merchandise.  US sellers have to pay Final Value Fees on the taxes collected by eBay as well, and of course their proportion of sales to the US is going to be higher than that of most Canadian sellers, so they're obviously finding some way to make this work.

As for HST on the Final Value Fee, this is nothing new.  eBay actually fought this with the feds and it lost, so if you have concerns about this, take it up with the Canada Revenue Agency.

The International Fee isn't exactly new, either.  PayPal charges one as well.

Just out of curiosity, what proportion of your sales are to Canada?

[byto253]

That is the lay of the land, you have to look at the total cost of selling decide if it is for you.    I think what we don't like is that it smacks of unfairness/sneakiness and I call it a back door fee increase.   Some have argued that the fee on taxes is eBay covering costs to handle the taxes, but at the FVF rate it mainly paddens the margins.  Nobody can claim that FVF rates are reasonable for flowing through funds to states.

But like I said, I look at the overall cost and decide what is worth listing, or not, instead of how it is collected.  No point to stress over what you can't change. 

[femmefan1946]

Payment processors , like MP , Paypal, and credit cards, have charged their fees on the total payment since at least the 1970s, when our business got our first merchant credit card account.

It's been a Standard Practice .

[byto253]

Yes, but no credit card or PayPal ever charged 12 to 13%.

[recped]

The bottom line.........

It's the amount of fees that matter not the method used to calculate them. If eBay removed the fees on Sales Tax they would simply increase the overall rate to compensate.

This would be the same as a Seller who charges for shipping and then decides to include the shipping amount in the item amount. The total is the same but the buyer gets "free shipping"....what a deal!

[marnotom!]

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@byto253 wrote:

Yes, but no credit card or PayPal ever charged 12 to 13%.

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My understanding is that when eBay brought in Managed Payments, Final Value Fee percentages were adjusted as a compensatory measure for sales taxes being added to the transaction value.  You'll note that some categories that have very heavy items that have high shipping charges are charged a very low percentage in FVF in recognition of those shipping costs.  Similar idea.