commission charged on sales tax

[lupimania]

I am just wondering why ebay is charging commission fees on the sales tax.  The seller receives no monies from the collection of sales tax so why does ebay consider it part of the sale and taking our money.   I ask that ebay stop charging commission on my sales tax as sales tax is not part of my sale but added on by them.

[bonjourami]

just do a search on this board for all the dozens of threads on this subject.

[espresso_warehouse]

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@lupimania wrote:

I am just wondering why ebay is charging commission fees on the sales tax.  The seller receives no monies from the collection of sales tax so why does ebay consider it part of the sale and taking our money.   I ask that ebay stop charging commission on my sales tax as sales tax is not part of my sale but added on by them.

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eBay isn't innovating and its market share is shrinking. Income has to come from anywhere they can nickel and dime it. I don't agree with the strategy but it's the reality here.

[fab_finds4u]

eBay receives the buyer's payment and they make sure the money they collect goes into the right pockets, and they don't  do that for free. 

[m60driver]

I asked that same question about my credit card processor some 40 years ago.  At least Ebay does pay the tax to the various states on my behalf which saves me more in time than the cost of the service.

[pburn]

What some responders don't seem to understand or acknowledge is that eBay is providing a service for that fee by computing, assessing, collecting and distributing the appropriate amount of sales tax in every buyer's jurisdiction. Attacking eBay at every turn seems to be more important than explaining the basis for the fee to OPs. Interesting, though, that those same people continue to sell on the platform.

[chapeau-noir]

Because payment processing is on the entire transaction - that includes item, shipping and tax.  That's all payment processors.

Is there any reason you didn't do a simple and brief search that would bring up the many many threads on this? 

[femmefan1946]

They are not charge a fee on sales tax. They are charging a fee on payment processing, which happens to include sales taxes sometimes.

This is Standard Practice in the payment processing industry. We paid fees to Moneris- who handled our merchant credit card account allowing us to take Visa and MasterCard - from 1979 or so until we closed our shop in 2014.

Here in Canada we are charged sales taxes (GST/HST/QST/PST depending on the province) on our eBay fees.

So it can go both ways.

[espresso_warehouse]

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@pburn wrote:

What some responders don't seem to understand or acknowledge is that eBay is providing a service for that fee by computing, assessing, collecting and distributing the appropriate amount of sales tax in every buyer's jurisdiction. Attacking eBay at every turn seems to be more important than explaining the basis for the fee to OPs. Interesting, though, that those same people continue to sell on the platform.

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Tolerance is not unlimited. Each person will have to evaluate how much they want to invest in eBay. In my case, selling personal items at a loss is fine for the moment. I am giving it until the end of 2022, and am hopeful there will be improvements soon.

In the meantime, anyone who is serious about their business can set up an online shop if they want to substantially cut down on their fees. It is trivially easy to do.

We can continue to make excuses for eBay's shrinking market share or we can speak realistically about what is going on.

[chapeau-noir]

Easy to set one up - but then you have to advertise, and that's where all the work comes in.  I actually closed the free standing store I had a while back because just trying to get the word out and gain cred was taking up all my time, which I didn't have enough of then.

[714ricki]

Commissions off of the Sales Tax is a normal practice amongst the payment collectors which includes  all the credit card companies. Ask a retail shop......the credit card company charges them commission off the grand total including the sales tax. From another perspective, ebay managed payment collects the taxes & pays the individual states on our behalf. Imagine all sellers having to pay the individual states for sales tax collected on a transaction. The commission is well worth it!

Just accept it, adjust your business model if necessary, & move on! There are lots of threads about this topic here in the community. Study the responses & you will see that most will have similar responses.

Hang in there!

[espresso_warehouse]

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@714ricki wrote:

Commissions off of the Sales Tax is a normal practice amongst the payment collectors which includes  all the credit card companies. Ask a retail shop......the credit card company charges them commission off the grand total including the sales tax. From another perspective, ebay managed payment collects the taxes & pays the individual states on our behalf. Imagine all sellers having to pay the individual states for sales tax collected on a transaction. The commission is well worth it!

Just accept it, adjust your business model if necessary, & move on! There are lots of threads about this topic here in the community. Study the responses & you will see that most will have similar responses.

Hang in there!

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Market share would grow if the value was truly there. Instead it is shrinking. I think we have to start being honest about this.

Still works for some, but it starts to sound like denial considering the facts.

[this*old*attic]

@espresso_warehouse 

It’s not clear to me why you think EBay is the problem here (or why you are basically spamming the boards with your gripe).

You don’t have enough items up to create a “presence.” You used to be seen on EBay with 25 items, but that was a decade or more ago.

You have several pricey sports related local pick up only items (small niche demand).

Several 99 cent to $5 items (why?).

A MacBook (I’d never gamble buying that on EBay, especially from a low feedback seller), and several other tech items.

It’s a strange mix of experimental hobby selling, that no longer matches the way the site works, to get rid of unwanted household/personal items.

Why should your business be booming?

No shade, btw. I have a full time job in the real world, and don’t get much up (despite hundreds of pieces left over from when I sold full time… maybe when I retire, LOL).

Ebay just isn’t so much of a clear your closet kind of place any more.

[dnasilver]

"Ask a retail shop" .....and that is a huge difference. The retail shop is paying a fixed sales tax. Sellers on here have no idea what it will be or if there even will be sales tax. It is impossible to calculate cost which any business that wants to succeed needs to know upfront  We are all for Ebay handling sales tax. What it costs to pay them is pennies compared to us trying to keep accurate up to date sales tax rates for every state, county, city, town, parish and so on let alone mailing out those checks per the law of that place. We would suggest a fixed amount per transaction instead of a moving average. That would allow the seller to determine their costs upfront.

[espresso_warehouse]

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@this*old*attic wrote:

@espresso_warehouse 

It’s not clear to me why you think EBay is the problem here (or why you are basically spamming the boards with your gripe).

You don’t have enough items up to create a “presence.” You used to be seen on EBay with 25 items, but that was a decade or more ago.

You have several pricey sports related local pick up only items (small niche demand).

Several 99 cent to $5 items (why?).

A MacBook (I’d never gamble buying that on EBay, especially from a low feedback seller), and several other tech items.

It’s a strange mix of experimental hobby selling, that no longer matches the way the site works, to get rid of unwanted household/personal items.

Why should your business be booming?

No shade, btw. I have a full time job in the real world, and don’t get much up (despite hundreds of pieces left over from when I sold full time… maybe when I retire, LOL).

Ebay just isn’t so much of a clear your closet kind of place any more.

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🤣Another attempt at making things personal based on account statistics. You'd imagine with the myriad of 'posting ID' accounts having zero listings you'd be pretty busy calling everyone out.

Did I ask you to evaluate my listings? You seemed totally confused by what you saw. So maybe focus on the OP and not those of us pointing out why accounts are closing, market share shrinking and complaints rising; a nickel and dime strategy.

eBay needs to innovate and become competitive. It's not and it's losing ground. You think that's a gripe?

It's a statement of fact.