Taxes

Question

Last month listing fees cost 25 cents each after my store allotted amount was used. Today I noticed it's now 27 cents per listing and it says there is a $0.02 tax now on each listing fee. I've also noticed a recent tax we're now paying on the total fees we're owed to ebay per listing.

Did I miss this latest fee in the last seller policy? I always read through the updates but don't remember seeing anything about a tax change.

Thanks!

monroe67 · Answer

I just viewed your listings to confirm my suspicion: You are in Texas.

"Did I miss this latest fee in the last seller policy?" It's not an eBay policy; not an eBay Thing.

"I always read through the updates but don't remember seeing anything about a tax change."
eBay made no such "tax change."

I'm not sure that the 25 cents or 27 cents are for. My selling ID does not have an eBay Store, so I'm not familiar with the fees for stores.

However: that Two Cent Tax is a new-ish Texas State Tax.

Your Texas state legislature has decided that you must pay a sales/service tax on service-type fees you pay to organizations -- such as the Final Value Fees (FVFs) you pay to eBay. It went into effect either September 1 or October 1 of this year. I'm not a Texan so I haven't memorized that particular detail.

If my memory services, the tax is your standard sales tax percentage times (x) 80% of the eBay FVFs.

eBay has agreed to collect taxes such as this for any US state that charges them. eBay also remits the money they collect from this new Texas tax directly to your government in Austin.

As you've found, this means that Texas is collecting minuscule amounts of money on eBay sales. Two Cents from you.

Again, I'm not a Texan, but I'm sure they'll collect enough money -- not only from eBay users -- to do something extremely worthwhile with all those pennies.