Crazy High Sales Tax
I've seen sales tax in the neighborhood of 60% being charged...how is that possible?
How do I contact Ebay to find out **bleep**?
16 comments
I've seen sales tax in the neighborhood of 60% being charged...how is that possible?
How do I contact Ebay to find out **bleep**?
mam98031
·2 years ago@lilysdad09-6
I'm confident everyone is telling you that this simply isn't possible. No state has that high of a sales tax. States control these number and that just isn't happening. Somehow you misunderstood something or looked at something the wrong way.
onefootflipper
·2 years agoOriginal poster is selling trading cards for 99 cents shipped, losing money on every single order and cares about the sales tax for some reason. Losing 18 cents on every order, and that is only accounting for 5 cents for shipping supplies and printing the label.
You lose money on all those cards even if they don't go to colorado. You just lose 4 cents more when they go to Colorado.
Luckily, very few people can ship more than 20 of those cards per hour, so you can only lose about $3.60 per hour.
johnrj1226
·2 years agoBuyers pay the sales tax.
onefootflipper
·2 years agoSellers pay ebay fees on sales tax. This normally is a number that is almost meaninglessly small compared to the entire transaction. In this case that extra colorado thing translates into an extra 4 cents in ebay fees, so he loses 22 cents on the order instead of 18 cents.
johnrj1226
·2 years agoThink you had a dream or your calculator is messed up or needs a newer battery
What state, county and maybe city was the buyer from and what was the total price paid for the item?.
Armed with that info You can look up on Google what the sales taxes are by each state/county etc, e.g. we live in GA but a state may have various sales tax rates by county and one county has two different tax rates. There are5 states have no sales taxes (they have higher taxes some place else - like prperty taxes, Personal we pay 7 tax except for food items. Taxes can go to 9%+ plus and as low as 3% on food items
12345jamesstamps
·2 years agoAmazing everyone here taking this seriously....probably done for giggles.
Seller sold one item and same item is up for sale again.
inhawaii
·2 years agoA "fee" is different than "tax".
The OP is not paying 60% tax.
valueaddedresource
·2 years ago@inhawaii I don't disagree with you on the semantics, and one might even assume that could be one reason Colorado put it in their law that the retail delivery fee must be stated separately from all other charges, including tax.
Be that as it may, it doesn't change the fact you can clearly see in the screenshot I provided that eBay does include that amount lumped in with sales tax, the entire amount is labeled in checkout as "tax" and therefore it would be completely reasonable and understandable for any buyer looking at that on their screen to do the math and wonder why they were paying ~25% tax on that order.
My point was simply that if the OP's situation is anything like what I described, they would not be mathematically wrong in their assertion, it would be eBay who would be wrong in both their application of the retail delivery fee and (as you pointed out) their usage of words.
dbfolks166mt
·2 years agoYou didn't provide any details or examples so there is not much anyone here can provide you. While you can contact customer support you should be aware they will tell you what you want to hear to get you off the phone even if that means lying to you. You will get better answers from the experienced sellers on this forum than you will from CS but you need to provide an example of an item you sold where the sales tax was 60%. A screen shot of the order details would be best.
There are several states with high tax rates but none are 60%. The five states with the highest average combined state and local sales tax rates are Louisiana (9.56%), Tennessee (9.55%), Arkansas (9.45%), Washington (9.38%), and Alabama (9.29%).
inhawaii
·2 years agoNo, you don't.
valueaddedresource
·2 years ago@inhawaii it's actually possible they might...because eBay isn't handling certain extra fees and taxes properly.
I'm not going to take the time to find one that exactly adds up to 60%, but can easily give an example of one where it would seem to be much higher than it should be.
If @lilysdad09-6 is the buyer in this situation, I would assume the item would be shipping to Colorado based on their item for sale - and also based on that, let's assume we're looking at a relatively inexpensive item like a trading card.
Colorado has a retail delivery fee that has to be added to any order shipped to that state, currently it's $0.29.
https://tax.colorado.gov/retail-delivery-fee-rates
The Colorado law says that $0.29 is supposed to be stated "separate and distinct from the sales price and other charges", other charges in this case would include the regular sales tax.
https://tax.colorado.gov/retail-delivery-fee-collection-and-retailer-election
But eBay has ignored that part of the law for the last 2 years and instead, they just add the $0.29 in with the rest of the sales tax.
And that's how you end up with something like this where it shows $0.42 in tax on a $1.68 order - which would appear to be about a ~25% tax rate on the total, or ~42% if you (incorrectly) were only calculating on the item price.
Take the $0.29 out of the tax and you'd be left with $0.13, which would be ~8% of the total and much more in line with tax rates you'd expect to see in that state.
So while yes it is accurate to say no state actually has a 60% sales tax, that doesn't necessarily mean a buyer couldn't possibly see a tax amount that would appear to be a rate that high in some situations where eBay is not properly following certain state tax laws.
luckythewinner
·2 years agoWhen you say the tax is 60% - 60% of what? The item price, or the transaction total including shipping?
Is this US sales tax, or a VAT from some other country?
Are you seeing the 60% sales tax as a buyer looking to purchase an item, or are you seeing it as a seller who sold an item?
Can you give us a screen shot or an item number?
valueaddedresource
·2 years ago@lilysdad09-6 a couple things that might explain what you are seeing:
First, depending on where the buyer is located, sales tax may be charged on the total including shipping, so when you look at the amount of tax and try to figure out what percentage it is, it's important to consider the total amount (assuming it's one of the states that does this.)
Second, some states have additional fees/taxes as well - for example some states add an ewaste fee for electronics or additional taxes/fees for battery recycling etc. Your state (Colorado) and more recently Minnesota have also tacked on delivery fees for road improvement taxes for orders delivered in those states.
https://community.ebay.com/t5/Report-eBay-Technical-Issues/eBay-collected-Denver-Colorado-sales-tax-too-high/m-p/33847951
https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Road-improvement-and-food-delivery-fee-for-sales-to-Minnesota/m-p/34607385
If you are the buyer in the scenario where you are seeing 60% tax, my guess would be it's that delivery fee - the law for Colorado says it is supposed to be stated separately from the regular sales tax, but last I checked eBay is still not doing that correctly and instead lumps it all in together as a single tax amount.
If you give a little more detail about what the item was, what the item cost and shipping (if there was any) where and the buyer's state and zip code, I bet we could help you figure out why it seems so high.
kensgiftshop
·2 years agoWhere are you seeing 60% sales tax?
itscalledapostingid
·2 years agoI'm gonna go out on a limb and say it: you are mistaken.
Sales tax is not 60% anywhere.
mam98031
·2 years ago@itscalledapostingid
Is there room on that limb for me to join you. Slide over !!!