eBay withholding sales tax twice

[jelloyacket2]

I made a sale via eBay international shipping, from US to Jersey (UK). The GST there is 5%. According to the order information I can see, it shows they charged the buyer 5%, but then withheld 10% from my payout. Any idea why I would get hit with an extra 5%? The eBay reps I’ve communicated with have effectively said, “The buyer paid tax to us, we withheld tax from you, what’s the problem? Our systems are infallible.” I can post a screen shot later for documentation (there’s also a minor math error, which doesn’t give me much confidence either).

[ebooksdiva]

Your buyer pays the price of the item plus shipping plus tax. You pay selling fees on the ENTIRE AMOUNT paid by the buyer. You receive your payment minus SELLING FEES from the TOTAL AMOUNT the buyer has paid. EBay takes the the buyers tax out before you get your money. The math is right. 
No one is being charged twice for tax. 

[inhawaii]

Thanks for the information.

I will take the appropriate action.

[brightlightbookseller]

Please do post the screenshots.  I suspect you're misinterpreting something, but if not, that would of course be cause for concern.

[jelloyacket2]

Here are screenshots from the Order Details page and the Transaction Details page. The biggest problem is the GST paid by buyer is only half what eBay withheld from my payout (as you can see, the selling fees and shipping were withheld separately). To be honest, there's other stuff I can't make sense of either, like the "Order total" not being the sum of the items above it, or the Transaction breakdown showing an 'Amount' value less than the item subtotal itself, when the pop-up says it is subtotal+shipping. But the tax line items seem like the most obvious problem.

Am I missing something here, or does this look wrong to you, too?

[jelloyacket2]

I did just realize the 219.87 is the 243.11 minus the doubled-up GST. So although the pop-up 'i' thing says it's subtotal plus shipping, without tax included, clearly the tax-in and tax-out are part of the calculation.

[stainlessenginecovers]

Well; it appears, plain as day, that both counts are correct.

They " do not" add up (by a few cents)

2.) They DID charge you exactly 2x the GST paid. 

There does NOT seem to be a reason for this. 

I suggest either trying again (whom ever you talked to) or better yet; try

ebay on facebook (ebay for business) and 'leave a message'; you will be asked, sometimes hours later, to 'input your password' so they can 'see' your account (this is safe and normal). 

[mam98031]

---

@jelloyacket2 wrote:

Here are screenshots from the Order Details page and the Transaction Details page. The biggest problem is the GST paid by buyer is only half what eBay withheld from my payout (as you can see, the selling fees and shipping were withheld separately). To be honest, there's other stuff I can't make sense of either, like the "Order total" not being the sum of the items above it, or the Transaction breakdown showing an 'Amount' value less than the item subtotal itself, when the pop-up says it is subtotal+shipping. But the tax line items seem like the most obvious problem.

Am I missing something here, or does this look wrong to you, too?

---

This is curious to be sure.  I don't even see something on your sold list for $220.  But the numbers above have some odd things going on.  So clearly I'm missing something.

Let's see what the experts can tell us.

elizabeth@ebay 

kyle@ebay 

devon@ebay 

[downunder-61]

@jelloyacket2  Can you confirm the item went to the UK? Australia, NZ and Canada have GST, but the UK has VAT.

I can also tell you VAT and GST are:  Au and NZ  10% , UK is 20%    But CANADA is GST 5% as you stated in your OP and has been charged on the screenshot, weird.

[downunder-61]

^^^^^ Ignore me ^^^^^^

Jersey UK is 5% so take absolutely no notice of me at all 😎

[brightlightbookseller]

Very odd! Definitely talk to eBay about that, I can’t make any sense out of it except some weird technical glitch! Are you contacting them via Facebook or Twitter? Those work better than via phone usually.

[jelloyacket2]

I was contacting them via the online chat and via email. No help. I can try FB next. 

[mam98031]

---

@jelloyacket2 wrote:

I was contacting them via the online chat and via email. No help. I can try FB next. 

---

I would suggest that you contact Ebay for Business on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter for the better trained CSRs.

Here are your options for contacting Ebay Customer Service.  Please be aware that for social media CS, you send them a Private Message and briefly explain what your problem or issue is.  Feel free to leave your Name, address, phone number and/or your email address in this message.  It is private and secure and it may help to speed up the response for you.

https://twitter.com/askebay

https://www.facebook.com/eBay/

https://www.instagram.com/ebayforsellers/

Your options will be on the left.  If you use the link below you can only get to the Automated Assistant or Chat box type AGENT in the box and hit enter. You will then get more options.  Not all options are available 24/7.  It will depend on staffing available.  So sometimes you can request a call back and sometimes you can't.  Sometimes you have the Chat option available and other times it won't me.  If it is important to you to use one of those options, just try back later.

If you use a cell phone or other mobile device, you may need to turn off your Spam filter so that Ebay can call you.

If you are a seller outside of the US or Canada, you will need to use the Chat Option.

https://www.ebay.com/help/home

[jelloyacket2]

Multiple back and forths on Facebook, still no resolution. At least the reps are sharp enough to see the discrepancy, but the tech team either doesn’t respond or says it’s fine. So I’m calling it quits on this problem. Probably will disable international shipping because I don’t have confidence in their backend calculations. 

I’d recommend you all check a few of your international sales, especially if you had any larger sales in that time period (August 29), to make sure the tax in “What the buyer paid” matches the tax withheld from “What you earned”.