Why am I paying seller fee's on Sales Tax at eBay?????
GRANDAM
Posts: 8,518 ✭✭✭✭✭
WHY????? WHY????? WHY???
GrandAm 
3
GRANDAM
Posts: 8,518 ✭✭✭✭✭
Comments
It’s a cruel world and getting more expensive everyday I wake up.
The argument is that eBay processes the sales tax payment just like they process any other payment, so they charge a fee on it. Also, they are the ones that remit the amount to the state, so there is some work being done by them.
I'm not a fan but it has been this way since sales tax began to be collected on eBay. And there really is no alternative if you want to sell on eBay (it would take a lot of people to complain/boycott eBay to change this and I just don't see that happening).
Now I feel bad,,,,,,,, I just checked and my buyer paid $178.75 in Sales Tax alone,,,,,,,,,
They got a tax on that to already 😳
Waking up isn't cheap. Also the fees they charge on shipping are good for them.
Jim
When a man who is honestly mistaken hears the truth, he will either quit being mistaken or cease to be honest....Abraham Lincoln
Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.....Mark Twain
Are you in a state that charges tax on coins?
Lafayette Grading Set
No, it wasn’t actually coins.
Probably why I never noticed it before.
It has been standard practice by payment processing companies for 50 years.
Better question: why wouldn't you pay the fees on the total cost of the purchase?
That's what makes it so difficult to buy or find a great deal on ebay.
If you stop and think about it we are paying the sellers fee and sales tax on our purchases.
We have a local coin show coming up in New Hampshire. It's a no sales tax state.
The biggest downside to that is we are limited to what the dealers have to sell.
Ebay is the largest coin Bourne in the world.
Student of numismatics and collector of Morgan dollars
Successful BST transactions with: Namvet Justindan Mattniss RWW olah_in_MA
Dantheman984 Toyz4geo SurfinxHI greencopper RWW bigjpst bretsan
Even better question: Do you pay fees on taxes and shipping with GC, Heritage, Stacks Bowers or other auction agencies? If so, there should be no problems with Ebay doing so, if not, then a reasonable WHY?
Jim
When a man who is honestly mistaken hears the truth, he will either quit being mistaken or cease to be honest....Abraham Lincoln
Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.....Mark Twain
If you live in a sales tax free state, you shouldn't be paying sales tax on ebay.
If you are the seller at GC etc, you are paying the same fees because the auction house has to pay those fees and they roll that cost into the BP and SP they charge. If you pay GC with a credit card, then GC pays credit card fees on the sale, the BP, the shipping, etc.
For a $500 item, total fees are lower at eBay than any of the venues you mention. EBay has no BP and the SP is only 9% on coins if you have a store. GC is 10% +10% + $5. Heritage and Stack's can be 10% + 20%.
The only exception MIGHT be sales tax but that's a Wayfair problem not an ebay problem. When they defined eBay as a marketplace, it created tax liability in any state that wanted to pass a marketplace user tax. The rules are different for other businesses in establishing locus for taxation.
Do you care? Just markup stuff accordingly.
It’s just part of being in the biz. Why does a dealer pay a table fee with no idea if show sales will even be good enough to make the project worthwhile. Do you want to do sales tax reporting, payment for multiple states? I sure as heck don’t want to.
@jmlanzaf
Have no problems with EBAY. Bought/sold since 2004. Just to answer the OP's question. If Ebay charges fees on taxes and shipping and no one else does, then he has reason to be PO'd. If all auction houses charge fees on taxes and shipping/handling when buyer pays taxes and shipping/handling on sale then no reason to be PO'd. Seller's fees are just for the auction house profit and has nothing to do with taxes and S/H paid by buyer. If the buyer paid no taxes or S/H then the auction houses should charge fees on those expenses. Jus' sayin' and JMO.
Jim
When a man who is honestly mistaken hears the truth, he will either quit being mistaken or cease to be honest....Abraham Lincoln
Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.....Mark Twain
Paying sellers fee's on sales tax is just another way for eBay to get more money from the seller. A sellers fee should be based on the money collected by the seller. The seller gets no part of the taxes therefore they should not pay fees on that amount. eBay gets a payment from the states for collecting and remitting the taxes. eBay does it because they can. eBay has to collect the tax to keep their platform thriving. I remember when this all started and many people said they were done selling on eBay because they didn't want to be involved with collecting the tax. eBay had to start collecting the tax or suffer the losses from reduced sales,,,,,, eBay made a choice to collect the tax because it was good for their business. eBay made a choice to stick it to the seller because it is good for THEIR business.
Greed is eternal. Our corporate world are greedier than a Ferengi on star trek.
Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value. Zero. Voltaire. Ebay coinbowlllc
Ebay are idiots with sales tax. Coins are exempt in Connecticut, and I have tried for 4 years to get them to comply with Connecticut law to no avail.
If you are unhappy with ebay rules just don't use them. There is no free rides like in the old days.
Yes absolutely there is no free ride in mumismatics.
Considering eBay handles sales tax returns / remittance with the states no problem. Just add that expense to the markup equation.
One needs to calculate what their bay selling cost really is in developing their cost plus markup equation for that venue. It’s the Bays venue their stadium so one has to work his game plan / angle accordingly.
Shows - table fees, meals, lodging, travel costs, can drag you down real fast. Katrina (Kat) also believes one needs factor in time spent - travel to show and time in bourse room (in developing Markup equation).
No coin/bullion taxes in the Commonwealth. God bless the Commonwealth. RGDS!
The whole worlds off its rocker, buy Gold™.
That's why I include contact information to large purchasers on EBay and offer them a better deal going through PayPal the next time, lots of the modern gold commemoratives and older (88-92) 4 coin gold sets go through there or Venmo for a flat 3% to cover the CC fees.
I hear you but why does he have any right to be po'ed when ebay charges the fees that they told him they were going to before he used them. This is not new. It's been discussed on the forum before several years ago. It's in all the ebay literature.
Ebay does not have a separate FVF and payment processing fees. There is no way for them to charge payment processing on the sales tax and not. FVF. All the payment processing out there (CC, PayPal, etc) charge the fees on the total cost of the sale including BP, sales tax and shipping.
There is no reasonable complaint to be made here unless you want to return to the more complicated fee structure that eBay used to have. I see no reason why all venues need to have identical fee structures.
Why don't we complain that ebay bullion fees are lower than coins? Maybe antique dealers should ask that coin fees be raised to match theirs? Why do guitars have such low Ebay fees?
We're also taking about 1% or less in fees. So, you want to complain that Ebay costs you 10% total instead of 9% and call that unfair because GC only charges 20-25% ($100 item) and doesn't charge you the 20-25% in the sales tax? EBay remains the cheapest venue for a seller. There's no absolute error or wrong in how fee structures are structured.
Regardless, he has the right to be PO'd. It's still America. If a police department in a certain area gives tickets for any speed over the limit(even 3 mph) and all the other surrounding police give a pass for the 1st 5mph a person speeding 3 mph over still has the right to be PO'd at the police dept issuing the ticket, even though they know they broke the law.
All I'm sayin, jm is give the OP a break.
Jim
When a man who is honestly mistaken hears the truth, he will either quit being mistaken or cease to be honest....Abraham Lincoln
Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.....Mark Twain
Irrelevant, as it's the buyer's state that matters
and, no, confusion is not a valid entry in the drop-down box.
ANA 50 year/Life Member (now "Emeritus")
Soon enough, you're going to be assessed a fee based on your feelings about eBay, by eBay and for eBay. .
you are paying sellers fees on sales tax because you have not yet started a class action lawsuit for their fraud.
It's hardly fraud to charge the fee based on total cost when you declare that up front.
Don't forget to include PayPal. American Express, Visa and Mastercard in your class action
You can be PO'ed just because it's Saturday if you want. It doesn't need to be rational. But this has been ebay policy ever since they merged the fees and went to managed payments. The fact that the OP wasn't aware of the policy is on him not ebay.
When is the class action suit going to start? It should have happened years ago.
I read somewhere that there are around 30,000 taxing jurisdictions in the US. As a seller would you rather collect and keep track of sales to buyers in any of those jurisdictions, keep up with tax changes in those jurisdictions and file the required tax returns yourself?
In my opinion paying eBay final value fees on sales tax is a bargain.
it's crackers to slip a rozzer the dropsy in snide
Cultivate more buyers in Texas, Ohio, and other enlightened jurisdictions like I have -- they don't charge sales tax on coins and bullion and so if properly listed your items won't be taxed to buyers in those jurisdictions. Heritage, Stacks, and GC don't charge me sales tax on my purchases since I live in Texas.
If eBay were to charge the reasonable and customary payment processing fee for sales tax, that would be one thing, but by charging 13%, they're essentially collecting 10% more sales tax than they should be and pocketing it rather than remitting it to the taxing body.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
You are conflating two things. The fee on the sales tax is an ebay user fee and not sales tax. There is absolutely zero need to remit it to anyone just like there is no need for Visa to remit even 1 cent. Just like the ebay user fee on the shipping charge is not itself a shipping charge.