Ebay charging sales tax on my sales, but I'm only doing personal sales

[goodnerd]

Sorry if this has been answered already - I tried searching for the question on the message board and it came back with 1000 hits so I'm hoping to get an answer here.

I'm a personal seller on eBay.  I'm not a business.  I don't buy things to sell on eBay, I'm just selling my stuff.

I now seeing eBay charging people sales tax on my sales.  I thought this was supposed to be only for businesses selling and not for private individual sales.

[powell-memorabilia]

Let's not give black and white advice when the situation doesn't call for it.  No, if you sell via eBay for a "personal garage sale," then you don't count it.  If you sell $50 worth of junk on eBay per year, on items that you bought for $100, why would you report that on your taxes?  Me, I have to report because of the amount of sales, and because there is real profit, but I wouldn't declare that everyone has to declare income from eBay.

[fred48ab]

So, in my recent sale, the sales tax is being paid to me via paypal; ebay is not holding it.  Is that correct?

On a previous purchase, the sales tax went to the seller in Great Britain - how can that be correct?

Thanks

[mam98031]

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@fred48ab wrote:

So, in my recent sale, the sales tax is being paid to me via paypal; ebay is not holding it.  Is that correct?

On a previous purchase, the sales tax went to the seller in Great Britain - how can that be correct?

Thanks

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Nope.

https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/fees-credits-invoices/taxes-import-charges?id=4121

[musicyouneed]

I sell from Canada and if it is sold to someone in the US ebay charges the buyer sales tax.  

[north40sales]

eBay is collecting sales tax on the transaction and then remitting it to the state taxing authority in the buyer's state where the sale "delivery" took place.   Not sure how long eBay gets to keep the funds before remitting it, but they get the float on the funds.  

They are not charging it to the seller....at least not what I am seeing.  If I sell an item for $10 plus $3 shipping....I see the invoice to the buyer for $13.00 plus sales tax of $1.05 (or whatever it may be depending on the local rate).  That $1.05 is collected from the buyer, not me....and then remitted to the state that the buyer is in as sales tax collected.

Its goofy yes, because many people just never bothered to report or remit sales tax on items purchased out of state where the seller did not have to collect sales tax, but the states expected their residents to self report. 

Now the states are happy because the new laws require someone else to collect the tax for them where it was voluntary before.   More tax money in, the happier the states are.   

[fred48ab]

Maybe ebay used to remit the sales tax to the state, but now it seems they remit it to the seller - that's been my experience in 2020.

[mam98031]

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@fred48ab wrote:

Maybe ebay used to remit the sales tax to the state, but now it seems they remit it to the seller - that's been my experience in 2020.

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What?  You are looking at something incorrectly to be sure.  So you say you are remitting the sales tax to the various states that the buyers you have are paying sales tax for.  I don't think so.  I think you misunderstand something for sure.

[chapeau-noir]

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@powell-memorabilia wrote:

Let's not give black and white advice when the situation doesn't call for it.  No, if you sell via eBay for a "personal garage sale," then you don't count it.  If you sell $50 worth of junk on eBay per year, on items that you bought for $100, why would you report that on your taxes?  Me, I have to report because of the amount of sales, and because there is real profit, but I wouldn't declare that everyone has to declare income from eBay.

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Are you talking about Federal income tax?  This conversation is about state sales tax.  Different animal.

[soh.maryl]

The state sales tax charged by eBay to the buyer is remitted to the state for which eBay is charging the state sales tax.  

Can you explain why you believe the state sales tax funds are remitted to the seller?

[fred48ab]

Correction

My initial paypal statement said the money was coming to me. However, I just rechecked my paypal account and it seems ebay is taking the tax, which is as it should be. Sorry for the error.

However, a few months ago when I bought a watch from an individual in Great Britain, ebay did indeed send him the sales tax (an error on ebay's part?) whic he then kindly refunded to me.

[jpgranton]

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@north40sales wrote:

Now the states are happy because the new laws require someone else to collect the tax for them where it was voluntary before.   More tax money in, the happier the states are.   

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The sad thing is, and this is true for all states at one time or another, no matter how much more money is raked into the coffers, it will still never be enough to cover the new programs the state will want to introduce.

Governor:  "Hey everybody in the state government, did you hear?  We're gonna be rolling in money due to the new revenue stream from online sales tax!"

Legislators:  "Really?  Well, let's develop some big new programs to waste it on and let's not wait to find out how much is coming on or when it might be here.  Let's just spend it all now, now, now, while we can."

Governor:  "Sounds like a plan.  Everyone agree?"

Legislators:  "Of course we do!"

(later that year)..."Hey I thought we were gonna get a whole lot of new dough.  Why is our state still in the poor house?"

Everyone else is expected to live within their means, but government never seems to.  Expect all sales tax money to be spent on new, stupid stuff before it's even in their hands.  It has the general sound of a toilet being flushed.

[monkeybutter17]

Regardless of eBay's blanket requirement to collect sales tax from buyers & remit said tax to some states without regard to whether the sales are personal property or business inventory, sales tax ultimately paid is determined by the buyer's state laws. If the state exempts non-business personal property sales from sales tax then it's up to the buyer to ask the seller if the seller is selling personal property or business property and recover the sales taxes paid on personal property transactions by including a sales/use tax form with his state income tax return at the end of the year which provides the means for having excess sales tax paid subtracted from his other state income and business sales/use taxes.

[monkeybutter17]

Regardless of eBay's apparent requirement to collect sales tax from buyers & remit said tax to some states without regard to whether the sales are personal property or business inventory, sales tax ultimately paid is determined by the buyer's state laws. If the buyer's state exempts non-business personal property sales from sales tax then it's up to the buyer to ask the seller if the seller is selling personal property or business property and recover the sales taxes paid on personal property transactions by including a sales/use tax form with his state income tax return at the end of the year which provides the means for having excess sales tax paid subtracted from his other state income and business sales/use taxes.

[jmanstuck]

For that matter yard sales should have sales taxes. Something sells it gets taxed, thats an asinine statement.  Its not that simple. It is as simple as we keep allowing tax practices that would have been a reason for a protest in the past

. Then you have the people saying just pay the tax. If a state wants that much tax money. We should get a detailed report accounting for every cent spent once a year.

[almostdread]

I think what you are saying would apply if you the individual was selling an item to another private individual directly, yourself.  However in this case you are not doing that, you are using a selling service, just like a physical auction house, where buyers and sellers also have associated and clearly documented fees.  As such, just like a physical auction house, you purchase is taxable.  Per the NYS state laws that you reference regarding auctions: 

"New York sales tax is charged on the hammer price, buyer's premium and any other applicable charges on any property picked up or delivered in New York, regardless of the state or country in which the purchaser resides or does business."

My guess would be that as Ebay is incorporated in NYS, maintains offices in NYS, and says they collect and pay the sales tax on transactions. 

I will agree that Ebay could be a lot more straight forward about this whole process...a simple place where one enters their zip and it sets the rate.  I'm not a business, just selling stuff out of my basement and garage and it is annoying.  Add to the shipping and seller fees and it almost becomes not worth it.