Sales Tax again on eBay - check your purchase history to request refunds

BStrauss3

It appears that eBay has done a reorganization of categories and that changed how the software was determining taxable / not taxable status.

Coins and Paper Money are now a level 2 category under Collectibles and Art which are taxable in Texas.

(Wayfair vs. South Dakota it's dependent on the buyers location, marketplaces are required to collect and remit - not arguing that)

I think they fixed it, my last transaction properly did not charge taxes. I did however notice I was charged tax last week.

You must pay for the purchase first, this generates an order number (not an item number).

The process to get a refund - either you call (which I dislike because there isn't a record) or...

Click on Help & Contact at the top left, scroll down to:

Click on a couple of the categories and eventually you are offered

Start by typing agent and then playing with the artificial stupid until you are eventually offered to wait for an agent.

I've found it most efficient to put it all in one message.

I placed an order, # 00-00000-000 and was charged sales tax. Numismatic coins are not taxable in Texas. Please create the ticket for the backend team and give me the ticket # for my tracking.

Sometimes you will get a few lines of customer service comfort blather, but most agents know how to do this, or their team lead can teach them.

Key is to get the ticket #.

They will tell you it can take up to 60 days, but I'm usually seeing the refunds posted in about two weeks.

I did have to go all the way back to January.

Connecticoin

Ebay’s sales tax personnel are lazy idiots. They have charged sales tax in CT on coins (which are exempt) since 2020 and I still can’t get them to stop. Now I have to fight with the state to get refunds.

BStrauss3

Rare and antique coins, foreign currency, gold and silver bullion traded according to their value as precious metals and costing more than $1,000

https://www.cga.ct.gov/2015/rpt/2015-R-0104.htm

Well the first place that's screwed up is in the definition.

"rare and antique coins" with neither term defined in law.

It's also possible that they were assuming that individual transactions had to be over a thousand dollars to be exempt.

Courts haven't actually ruled on the Oxford comma recently - O’Connor v. Oakhurst Dairy was remanded by the 1st Circuit back to the Maine district court. The district court ruled in the driver's favor “because, under Maine law, ambiguities in the state's wage and hour laws must be construed liberally in order to accomplish their remedial purpose.”

asheland

They have it fixed now, but in North Carolina about two years ago, they were charging it and I had to go back and get a refund and it made me just completely quit buying on eBay for a while.

oldabeintx

I’ve quit buying in TX. Has this now been fixed?

jmlanzaf

@BStrauss3 said:

Rare and antique coins, foreign currency, gold and silver bullion traded according to their value as precious metals and costing more than $1,000

https://www.cga.ct.gov/2015/rpt/2015-R-0104.htm

Well the first place that's screwed up is in the definition.

"rare and antique coins" with neither term defined in law.

It's also possible that they were assuming that individual transactions had to be over a thousand dollars to be exempt.

Courts haven't actually ruled on the Oxford comma recently - O’Connor v. Oakhurst Dairy was remanded by the 1st Circuit back to the Maine district court. The district court ruled in the driver's favor “because, under Maine law, ambiguities in the state's wage and hour laws must be construed liberally in order to accomplish their remedial purpose.”

I don't even know how to interpret that exemption. Why would coins under $1000 be exempt but not bullion? Why would foreign currency be exempt over $1000 but not under?

BStrauss3

@oldabeintx said:
I’ve quit buying in TX. Has this now been fixed?

As I said above, the most recent purchase I made on fleaBay did not charge me tax.

5/16/2024 not charged
5/14/2024 charged

both items were listed under "Collectibles & Art > Coins & Paper Money"

But there is always next week.

@jmlanzaf said:
I don't even know how to interpret that exemption. Why would coins under $1000 be exempt but not bullion? Why would foreign currency be exempt over $1000 but not under?

Really? **You ** have to ASK why exemptions are defined in stupid ways? Did the pod people take you over?

I think the revenue people messed up in summarizing the actual laws.

https://www.cga.ct.gov/current/pub/chap_219.htm

Sec. 12-412. Exemptions. Taxes imposed by this chapter shall not apply to the gross receipts from the sale of and the storage, use or other consumption in this state with respect to the following items:

(45) Gold or silver bullion, legal tender of any nation, rare and antique coins. Sales of and the storage or use of rare or antique coins, gold or silver bullion and gold or silver legal tender of any nation, traded according to its value as precious metal, provided such exemption shall not be applicable with respect to any such sale, storage or use in which the total value of such bullion or legal tender sold by the retailer is less than one thousand dollars.

I would parse it as two comingled provisions

Sales of and the storage or use of

• rare or antique coins,

Sales of and the storage or use of

• gold or silver bullion and
• gold or silver legal tender of any nation, traded according to its value as precious metal,

provided such exemption shall not be applicable with respect to any such sale, storage or use in which the total value of such bullion or legal tender sold by the retailer is less than one thousand dollars.

I.e. that last, $1000 provision only applies to precious metals

But, coins ARE legal tender and you could probably argue the other way.

Slade01

How could this possibly happen on EBay?
My theory is that there are complicated laws in some states, for example Texas only taxes currency. Who knows why.
The trolls at EBay are among the least intelligent people that have mastered breathing, I estimate their average IQ to be well under 80, which I think answers the question that I posed on how it could happen at EBay.

BStrauss3

There are a couple of companies, decent sized companies, that make software for sales & use taxes.

BUT they are only as good as the coding of the item. EBay doesn't make the seller classify the object for sale, so they are working off signals like description and categories listed in.

It's not just as simple as saying "coin", because of dependecies like I cited above:

what kind of coin (ancient, antique, modern)?

What metal? Gold, Silver, base, mixed, ???

Fineness? Some tax jurisdictions tax bullion one way or the other, some differentiate 0.999 from 0.900.

Connecticoin

@BStrauss3 said:

@oldabeintx said:
I’ve quit buying in TX. Has this now been fixed?

As I said above, the most recent purchase I made on fleaBay did not charge me tax.

5/16/2024 not charged
5/14/2024 charged

both items were listed under "Collectibles & Art > Coins & Paper Money"

But there is always next week.

@jmlanzaf said:
I don't even know how to interpret that exemption. Why would coins under $1000 be exempt but not bullion? Why would foreign currency be exempt over $1000 but not under?

Really? **You ** have to ASK why exemptions are defined in stupid ways? Did the pod people take you over?

I think the revenue people messed up in summarizing the actual laws.

https://www.cga.ct.gov/current/pub/chap_219.htm

Sec. 12-412. Exemptions. Taxes imposed by this chapter shall not apply to the gross receipts from the sale of and the storage, use or other consumption in this state with respect to the following items:

(45) Gold or silver bullion, legal tender of any nation, rare and antique coins. Sales of and the storage or use of rare or antique coins, gold or silver bullion and gold or silver legal tender of any nation, traded according to its value as precious metal, provided such exemption shall not be applicable with respect to any such sale, storage or use in which the total value of such bullion or legal tender sold by the retailer is less than one thousand dollars.

I would parse it as two comingled provisions

Sales of and the storage or use of

• rare or antique coins,

Sales of and the storage or use of

• gold or silver bullion and
• gold or silver legal tender of any nation, traded according to its value as precious metal,

provided such exemption shall not be applicable with respect to any such sale, storage or use in which the total value of such bullion or legal tender sold by the retailer is less than one thousand dollars.

I.e. that last, $1000 provision only applies to precious metals

But, coins ARE legal tender and you could probably argue the other way.

I agree the law is poorly written, and to not allow the exemption for bullion under $1k makes no sense. However, every significant CT coin dealer I have discussed this with says ALL coins are exempt, and every coin show in CT that I have attended have had no tax on coins. There used to be a regional show in Stamford called Coinfest that chose CT because of this exemption that is not in NY or NJ.

Actually ebay does exempt CT sales tax on bullion and coin sales over $1,000, but they are too lazy to separate coins from bullion under $1,000 so they stupidly apply the tax to both.

BStrauss3

Honestly, I think the stupidity is in not making sellers accurately describe their merchandise. No amount of guessing is going to give good results.

fleaBay made a big deal a year or two ago about their catalog and how it was going to improve the quality of item descriptions. That's gone down the tubes with the garbage AI text.

Connecticoin

That's gone down the tubes with the garbage AI text.

With coins AI is all garbage. Maybe use AI as a first draft, but if you have high school level or better writing skills, using your brain is far superior to AI.

jmlanzaf

@Connecticoin said:

That's gone down the tubes with the garbage AI text.

With coins AI is all garbage. Maybe use AI as a first draft, but if you have high school level or better writing skills, using your brain is far superior to AI.

Actually, it depends on how you use the AI. If you create an agent, you can get it to give much more accurate responses.

johnny9434

@Connecticoin said:
Ebay’s sales tax personnel are lazy idiots. They have charged sales tax in CT on coins (which are exempt) since 2020 and I still can’t get them to stop. Now I have to fight with the state to get refunds.

round and round we go, ct here as well

johnny010

My tax claim with eBay on incorrectly charged tax on coins was supposed to take six months to review. I never got a follow up from them.

BStrauss3

My last six took under a week.

CRHer700

I bought two items from the same seller, both lots of three similar coins, one last week and one yesterday. They charged me tax on the first and did not on the second.

BStrauss3

Ya gotta love eBay

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