Ebay sales tax, who does what?
MCMLVTopps
Posts: 4,839 ✭✭✭✭✭
Can somone well versed in this topic give a crayon comment on requirements by seller and buyer?
It appears Congress will eventually get to all 50 states requiring taxes be collected by sellers on all eBay sales. It also appears that some buyers are being unfairly gouged by unscrupulous sellers, who demand a sales tax, when in fact non is required.
There appears to be more confusion as to who sells to who with regard to where the seller and buyer reside. I live in Georgia, and sell to somebody in Wyoming, or anywhere else, what is my liability to collect taxes? Or, are there any?
Of course there's the minutia of not only Federal tax, but, state, county and even city tax may play a role here.
I guess the objective here is to #1, become more educated in this heart warming topic, #2, learn my obligations to Uncle Sam, and #3, how to protect myself if I'm a buyer. I don't want to sell an item I might have for $5k and later get a serious surprise from the debt collector, nor do I want to buy something wherein the seller fails to meet his/her obligation and I get hit the other way.
So, if you can give some semblance of rational explanation, I'd like to read it. Crayon level preferred.
Tks!
Al
Comments
Seems that Ebay does the collection and bookkeeping.
This is a relevant thread from the coin side of the forum.
https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/1026573/ebay-sales-tax-buyers-not-happy#latest
Tell ya what this tax thing is complete nonsense, it effected my PayPal account for a few days, my account was basically put on hold over me listing my annual income and a few other things, over the years I’ve paid thousands in fees to them and it took a blistering phone call by me to a supervisor threatening to never use it again ( Major lie btw ) to get my account back in working order. I canceled a few transactions when they tried to charge me sales tax, not sure if every state does it now since I haven’t bought anything in a while but it’s very annoying
why are you mad at paypal? they, personally, didnt charge you sales tax. they are simply a payment service. the vending company whether it be ebay, comc, etc are the ones charging the tax, paypal is simply just passing along the invoice details and collecting said payment.
Maybe you didn’t understand my crystal clear post? I thought I made it pretty clear, try reading it again and MAYBE you will understand. I give it a very strong Maybe.
Ebay collects tax from the buyer on the seller's behalf and remits it also. The sales tax is based on the buyer's home state not the seller's location. Most states are now collecting tax for ebay purchases and those that aren't can expect to be added very soon as they are adding additional states almost every month.
ETA: I see Coin already posted a link above to the thread on the coin side of the forums discussing this topic.
Collecting 1970s Topps baseball wax, rack and cello packs, as well as PCGS graded Half Cents, Large Cents, Two Cent pieces and Three Cent Silver pieces.
ok, so lets try again bc all i got was that you threw a tantrum because "they" charged you sales tax. ya attempted to back out of a few deals or requested returns from sellers via ebay because of a federal requirement, i presume, and that didn't work.
so you then called paypal, spent an hour with an annoying customer service agent who was just as confused as me. they didn't have your back, which frustrated you even more so you requested a manager. after you were put on hold for a while and finally got to a manager who told you no, you basically threatened to never use them again, a self-admitted lie, to reverse the said transactions all because "they" charged you sales tax.
i will further presume that this past 10 days, even with the numerous new "sales tax" threads popping up that YOU just didn't realize that you had been getting charged sales tax until you fun day of phone calls and attempts at passing the blame.
and not that it matters, but considering "they" asked you about your annual income, i'll presume all this went down on a paypal credit card or account. finally, you feel that the thousands of dollars you've paid them in fees over the years justifies your tantrum, backing out of the deals and omits responsibility for overlooking each transaction in which sales tax was collected, which was probably several, right?
how'd i do this time both in answering your request to reread and returning your condescending tone back to you?
i was generally trying to help you out with my initial post.
to answer your question, yes i read it again and still very confused by your actions, but best of luck with all this.
"Uncle Sam" IE the feds, have nothing to do with sales tax. It's a state issue and the complexity arises because each state has different laws.
If you're a small seller, unless the US suddenly turns into Nazi Germany, then don't worry about it. Small sellers likely aren't going to meet any sort of state threshold to collect sales tax in any state other than their home state.
For example California is arguably the worst state out there for harassing sellers across the country with "letters" threatening all sorts of nasty things. Last time I checked, California had passed a threshold of $500,000 per year or 200 transactions per year as a seller requirement to collect sales tax. So your 5k sale, if it was to California, if you don't meet any of the thresholds, wouldn't require you to collect sales tax. If the 5k sale or any sale was to someone in your home state, you're supposed to collect and remit the sales tax to your home state.
It's the buyer in California who bought from you who is technically obligated to pay the sales tax to California. But all states including California, are reluctant to go after their residents for transactions such as that for fear of looking like the Gestapo.
That's why Ebay, Amazon, etc, are and will be collecting the sales tax from buyers and remitting it to the states. The states have forced Ebay, Amazon, etc, to be their Gestapo sales tax collector.
Well i think that's a crayon level explanation. I'll stop here before it becomes a dissertation, and it can be with all the different evolving scenarios. It's government making our lives more complex so that more government is needed to solve the problems they create.
I sum up the Ebay tax situation like this- "High, welcome to Ebay, yes you can buy this card, but we'll have to kick you in the shins at checkout first."
south dakota vs wayfair (the precedence) was a case heard by the....United States Supreme Court. So what started out on the state level reached...uncle sam.
while the federal government itself does not benefit financially, it is now the law of the land. while our judicial justices are nominated by our executive branch and vetted thru our us congress, so technically the federal government most certainly had something to do with state sales tax.
***this is the exact reasoning behind pwcc’s move to oregon. a state that does not have a state sales tax and the sales tax skirting “vault services”. ship your card there, pay no sales tax, then they ship it to you for a fee (wink, wink) BUT completely legal for now.
Wow. So you know the play by play and all the details? Your funny, very nice job making the narrative to go along with all your nonsense. I mean could you draw this up any better to sound like you were with me during this entire situation? As I said my PayPal got jammed up due to this tax thing, I have 100% feedback with over 1400 transactions. Out of nowhere my PayPal got locked because they needed to update my taxable income which I did yet it was still locked, yes the customer service agent was confused because she had no idea why it was locked. The Supervisor was just as confused and had to unlock it since it was a mistake on their end which was a direct result of this new tax nonsense on Ebay, THEY apologized since it was on their end not mine. Problem was fixed. Not my fault, when I was trying to move $800 from my PayPal account to my checking account and it was locked after I obliged and made the necessary updates I was pissed, again problem was on their end not mine. As far as me canceling transactions I never paid for anything then canceled, I went to checkout and noticed tax being added so I canceled and bought said item from a different vendor without paying tax and saved money. I don’t need your genuine help, I’m doing just fine on my own so throw your banter at someone else’s post and spin it anyway you want with them. I’m good
All the bigger sellers are the ones who have to bend over for fear that they can be audited. When the state comes in and does that, as the seller, they are required to show proof that they have collected and remitted the appropriate amount of tax to the state. If not, they become liable....and of course there are penalties, interest etc to increase the amount due, again now all out of the seller's pocket. States are all looking to increase revenues any way they can.
My understanding is that, as an individual, if you collect as a hobby and sell some off your holdings (depending upon the value and the type of sale) it will not be taxable. If you make a sale here, collector to collector, small transactions will be fine. There is no sale mechanism here, where the others like EBAY and AMAZON etc make their livelihoods that way. The states don't have the ability to check out the smaller sources. and when they do the end result doesn't justify spending their audit dollars there.
As stated which is correct - "Uncle Sam" IE the feds, have nothing to do with sales tax.
Yes, the US Congress has the power to tax, we all know that. But to the best of my knowledge the US Congress, at least in modern times, has not enacted a national sales tax, and has no intention of doing so.
The US Congress does enact an excise tax, which is sort of a sales tax, on selected items such as alcohol, tobacco, etc, but the consumer generally does not see that when they are purchasing the product. The consumer does directly see the state sales tax as an add-on to each taxable item.
State sales taxes can vary, as we all know, but the federal excise tax on selected items, by law must remain constant throughout the land.
Regarding your comments about PWCC. Yes, Oregon has no sales tax. However let's take California again, if they meet the threshold for tax collection in sales to California, then they must collect California sales tax on shipments made to California, and remit the tax to California.
If anyone is advertising "no tax" on their sales, then they are simply building it in to their profit margin. The same as when there is any advertisement for free freight. There is no such thing as "free freight" when an item is shipped out by USPS, UPS, FedEx, etc. The consumer is paying for the freight charge, one way or the other.
I'm not sure about PayPal, it's probably similar, but Amazon has what is called a "velocity limit" whereby if you've been selling a small amount of items, and suddenly your sales volume dramatically increases, rather than dispensing your payment at the normal interval, they will hold the money for a certain period of time.
thank god you werent taxed on the amount of monkey wrenches in your explanations. since you said it
as stated above with the aforementioned court case, you are wrong.
Thank god you didn’t make your finger tips bleed with another long delusional post again 🙄
only took once to figure out what i was working with.
Right. You stated you were offering to help though, next time your offering your “Help” try to find someone who is looking for it first and don’t be a punk and assume you know what your talking about before making an idiot of yourself. Hope that “Helps” you 👍
got me.
but since we are offering each other advice, maybe next time dont come into a thread throwing monkey wrenches in because paypal’s request for your annual income and the subsequent hold on your account had absolutely nothing to do with them starting to collect sales tax.
but w/ your massive 1400 transaction log, you definitely knew that already. and if you didnt, would just provide us w another self-admitted lie.
trust me, if your willing to lie to paypal with empty threats, i have no problem believing that you would be completely and utterly honest here, right?
just like paypal, im questioning your credit, too.
youre definitely the type that has to get the last word, so heres your chance...
best of luck.
No you can get the last word in, I’m ok with that I just don’t lay down when some complete idiot like yourself starts quoting my post and cherry picks it with nonsensical responses while Claiming to be offering help but is a punk about it. As far as my credibility goes please don’t think for one second your opinion on that matters even a little bit. Where did you come from anyways? Are you a coin guy who got bored and decided to stir things up here?
anyways.