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Ebay charging sales tax on coin sale in Texas to Texas. There are no sales tax on coins in Texas.
Ebay charged my buyer sales tax on a coin he purchased. Texas does NOT charge sales tax on coins, or silver.
How can buyer get his money back from ebay ?
53 comments
blissfulbounty-1
·1 year agoeBay buyer and seller of coins here. eBay's tax policy on coins is not consistent. Most of the time they (correctly) do NOT charge tax on coin purchases in Texas. Every once in a while, for whatever reason no one can explain, the item gets charged tax when I am clearly purchasing it in Texas. I contact eBay and they give me this song and dance about filling out a form to be tax -exempt, not understanding it's is Texas state law not to charge tax on coins / bullion - I buy locally all the time and the coin dealers who adhere closely to state laws to stay in business do not charge tax on those items, but do charge tax on currency. I am not a tax-exempt business. I eventually get someone who makes a report and submits it to their tax department and then in a couple of days I get the refund.
Every time I was charged tax, required a call and an escalated issue. Sometimes the tax is hefty because the amounts are large, so it's a pain but I don't want to overpay. What really sucks is when you get someone who sticks to their guns and says nope - you have to pay - then I have to request a supervisor call back. I wish they would just make a knowledge base that's searchable with the terms Texas Coins Tax and see the solution when this happens.
Unavailable member
·1 year agoYou are 1 year too late responding to this thread from May 2024.
kh-adrian
·1 year agoHi everyone,
Due to the age of this thread, it has been closed to further replies. Please feel free to start a new thread if you wish to continue to discuss this topic.
Thank you for understanding.
despatch
·2 years agoHave the buyer request a Sales Tax refund and make eBay explain why they charged tax. eBay is not granular on what they do here, it is a blanket policy regardless - check sales tax on food items from states that don't tax food (this would be dry items sold online). They just collect on all sales if the affected state has sales taxes.
Unavailable member
·2 years ago1) are your buyers in Texas? That determines sales tax, not where you live or from where you ship your items.
2) Why would eBay give sales tax to you? If anything, they'd give it to the buyer. That is unlikely, as eBay sends that sales tax money to the state that requires the charge.
marnotom!
·2 years agoOkay, we know that the seller is in Texas. Are we sure that the buyer is in Texas as well?
dbfolks166mt
·2 years agoOkay, we know that the seller is in Texas. Are we sure that the buyer is in Texas as well?
The only thing we can go on is what the OP posted and the title of the posting. Given how long the OP has been selling and the fact that they shipped the item I am pretty positive they know what they are stating. This is not the first post on this forum about eBay improperly applying sales tax and generally the amount is so small that neither the buyer or the seller notice it. It's when you get into the higher dollar items that it really begins to become noticeable.
A good example is sales tax on shipping. About 1/2 of the states do not charge sales tax on shipping if it is separately identifiable so in some cases it is to the buyer detriment if the seller is offering free shipping. Most buyers probably don't even bother to check if the sales tax was properly calculated.
onefootflipper
·2 years agoThe Texas internet Tax is actually a "Use Tax" and may not have any of the loopholes or exceptions that their sales taxes have.
In any case ebay is not pocketing the money, they are certainly giving it to the state.
im-poor2
·2 years agoTexas does not have a "USE TAX" nor a state income tax or a tax on coins. For years I have been purchasing coins on Ebay and was NOT charged any tax until this year. This year I have been taxed on at least 23 different purchases of coins. The category in which the coins are listed is at the top of the listing and the coins have been in the correct category. The seller did not make an error in listing the coins in the wrong category.
This has happened since Ebay moved COINS: US from its own category and put them under COLLECTIBILES & ART . When they did this Ebay made a "glitch" (impossible?). Ebay should refund me the tax money they collected since I did not make the mistake.t
If a seller makes a mistake then he/she has to correct it, if Ebay makes a mistake then Ebay should correct it.
im-poor2
·2 years agoCORRECTION: There is no "USE TAX" on coins.
oldwestgold
·2 years agoYou are assuming in your statement. eBay could be pocketing the money unless you have data to prove otherwise.
marnotom!
·2 years agoI think it’s a safe assumption. How would eBay be able to separate sales taxes it collected erroneously from sales taxes correctly collected for a particular jurisdiction when they all go into the same pot?
onefootflipper
·2 years agoEbay could also not be paying their electric bill and cooking the books on Florida state tax, I am just going to operate under the assumption that a multibillion dollar company is not running piddly scams.
farmalljr
·2 years agoYou can assume anything you want. Doesn't mean you are correct. Already forget what eBay did to the couple who run a ecommerce blog? No one would have thought something like that would have been done either, but the federal cases that ensued show us otherwise.
And please define piddly. I would happily take all that "piddly" tax money on all the bullion and coin purchases. I can guarantee all that money they take in with taxes is MANY times your total yearly gross sales. A single ounce of gold is almost 2500 bucks. We are not talking about cents on a sale.
dbfolks166mt
·2 years agoEbay could also not be paying their electric bill and cooking the books on Florida state tax, I am just going to operate under the assumption that a multibillion dollar company is not running piddly scams.
In general one would assume that. Do you remember EF Hutton, Arthur Anderson, ENRON, PG&E (Erin Brockovich Movie), WorldCom? Maybe not so much a "piddly scam" as creative accounting. 🙂
az93
·2 years agoYour buyer owes sales tax unless he lives in texas. Where seller lives doesn't matter.
oldwestgold
·2 years agoMany other states have tax exemptions on coins and such.
dbfolks166mt
·2 years agoI looked at your sold listings and they all should have been exempt from Texas sales tax under current law. However, you didn't provide a lot of detail about the buyer sales tax charge and your sold items have two cost elements the coin which is tax exempt and the shipping which is not sales tax exempt in Texas.
You can also file complaints with the eBay Attorney General regarding improper sales tax collection by eBay.
https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/consumer-protection
farmalljr
·2 years agoYou all rambling on about tax on exempt bullion/coins are LATE to the party.
eBay has been ILLEGALLY charging and pocketing the sales tax they were not supposed to collect, for a number of years now. I am in an exempt state, and had to get a hold of CS EVERY stinking time I bought bullion. So I have stopped buying ANY bullion here at all. That was a completely moronic move by this platform, because I am sure I am NOT the only one who has quit buying here because of the flat out THEIVERY charging sales tax where NONE is legally due.
I hope eBay gets sued and fined out the wazoo over it. There is NO excuse to be made for eBay charging tax when none is due. They can keep up with all the different sales taxes required to be collected. But the only reason they are not with bullion/coins, is because they are stealing the tax money.
The tax issue does not happen when you are buying from big dealers, only when you deal with small and independent sellers. And some may elude to the seller "may have put the item in the wrong category" but that's not the case all the time either. I've bought plenty in the bullion category and been charged sales taxes.
ajs_coins_and_alchemy
·2 years agoThere are plenty of instances where an item is categorized as bullion, shouldn't be taxable, but is taxed because the seller failed to mark the proper item specifics. A .999 Silver Bar in the Bullion > Bars/Rounds needs to be marked in Item Specs as Composition: Silver and Fineness: 0.999 ... assuming that will meet the state specific laws. This is not eBay's fault, this is the sellers fault. eBay should train sellers but sellers need to mark it properly. Just because your state exempts bullion, and the item is in the bullion category, does NOT mean it should be tax exempt. It needs to be described properly and meet state exemption laws. (Copper Bullion belongs in Bullion category but many states do not exempt copper bullion purchases. Not every bullion item is exempt. Must specify what it is).
ajs_coins_and_alchemy
·2 years agoFor the record I found 8 past orders of mine with buyers in TX. 6 were charged tax, 2 were not.
Taxed items include:
-Innovation Dollar (graded)
-Penny (graded)
-Penny (graded)
-Proof Set
-Quarter (graded)
-Quarter (graded)
All in proper categories (Quarters, Pennies, Proof Sets, etc)
Non-taxed Items include:
-Eagle (raw)
-Franklin (graded)
In proper categories - Bullion, Franklins.
redmodelt
·2 years agoWouldn't the best course of action be to contact the taxing authority in Texas and ask them? They are the ones who provide the information about what is taxable under the internet marketplace tax laws for your state. What is nontaxable when bought in person might be taxable when bought online.
monroe67
·2 years ago"Ebay charged my buyer sales tax on a coin he purchased. Texas does NOT charge sales tax on coins, or silver.
How can buyer get his money back from ebay ?"
The buyer cannot get a refund of his sales tax from eBay. The best way is for the buyer to google getting sales tax refunds from his Texas state government.
(BTW, if several other posters, including sin-n-dex, are correct, that online transactions for purchasing coins are in fact subject to Texas state sales taxes, then Texas is unlikely to refund the sales taxes on this transaction -- for the simple reason that eBay was following Texas laws on taxation, and eBay's collection of sales tax was proper.)
This post reminded me of several posts from a few years ago when eBay's collection of sales tax, as a Marketplace Facilitator, was a new process.
In addition to buyers, quite a few sellers felt it was Wrong. (Although it was then and still is The Law for eBay to collect sales taxes on, well, sales that are done through eBay.)
Some sellers chose to handle this "problem" (in their eyes) by simply refunding the amount of sales taxes to their buyers. Those refunds, of course, came from the seller's profits and were in essence more like gifts to their buyers.
I'm not telling the OP what to do, of course. Just relaying some "solutions" that other sellers said they had done in past years, for this sales taxation "problem."
sin-n-dex
·2 years agoI only did the refund the tax thing one time... buyer had an order of coins, and I used an existing listing in SixBit to create his listing, but I forgot to put it in a coin category and it was left in whatever category the listing was in, so he got charged tax.
That was on me, so I gave him the $6 back, and he repaid me by coming back to buy a bunch more stuff. I'm now much more careful about what category I list things in this case, because the buyer didn't realized he'd been charged tax until after he paid (and when he commits to purchase, it's too late to change the listing).
C.
sin-n-dex
·2 years agoCan you provide the listing #?
I had this happen a couple of times (US buyers). If I see what category, I can possibly tell you why they got charged (based on my experience selling coins here).
C.
cardxcraft
·2 years ago.........mis-read
jbrt
·2 years agoNo, they should not collect tax. From the Texas Administrative Code, Title 34, Part 1, Chapter 3, Subchapter O, RULE §3.336:
(a) Definitions. The following words and terms, when used in this section, shall have the following meanings, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise.
(1) Bullion--Gold, silver, or platinum that is formed into uniform shapes and quantities such as ingots, bars, or plates, with uniform content and purity, as are suitable for or customarily used in the purchase, sale, storage, transfer, and delivery of bulk or wholesale transactions in gold, silver, or platinum.
(2) Currency--The coin and paper money of the United States or another country that is designated as legal tender and circulates and is customarily used and accepted as a medium of exchange in the country of issuance.
(3) Numismatic coin--A coin that is not used as a medium of exchange or whose price depends more on characteristics such as beauty, rarity, and condition than on its metal content or its face value.
(b) Taxability of sales of gold, silver, or numismatic coins, and gold, silver, or platinum bullion. Effective October 1, 2013, the sale of gold, silver, or numismatic coins or of gold, silver, or platinum bullion is exempted from Texas sales and use tax.
(1) This exemption does not include gold, silver, or numismatic coins, or gold, silver, or platinum bullion in the form of jewelry or other items of adornment.
(2) The purchase of a commodity contract for items exempt under this subsection is not a taxable transaction.
(c) Taxability of currency exchanges. The exchange of currency for another form of currency based on an exchange rate is not a taxable transaction if the invoice, receipt, billing, sales slip or ticket, or contract issued to the customer identifies the exchange rate.
(d) Taxability of the sale of certain paper money. The sale of paper money that is not currency is taxable as the sale of tangible personal property. Sales or use tax is due on the total sales price of the paper money.
(e) Use of gold, silver, or numismatic coins or gold, silver, or platinum bullion to acquire taxable items. Persons who use gold, silver, or numismatic coins or gold, silver, or platinum bullion to acquire taxable items owe tax on the transaction based on the sales price of the taxable item.
12345jamesstamps
·2 years ago"This exemption does not include...numismatic coins(crafted for collecting)....(of or relating to the study oe collecting of coins, tokens, and paper money)
It kind sounds like you are wrong.....sorry
ajs_coins_and_alchemy
·2 years ago@12345jamesstamps
..... I'm sorry.... You chopped this sentence completely in half.... I also do not understand where you are pulling your "definitions" from in the parentheses. Are you taking the liberty to insert definitions here? I would be careful about the use of definitions, laws define their own terms very clearly. I do not recognize your definition of Numismatic coins as "crafted for collecting". That is not an accurate definition or not a widely accepted one.
Below, the underlined portion is what you quoted, and the bold section is the key part you dropped....
This exemption does not include gold, silver, or numismatic coins, or gold, silver, or platinum bullion in the form of jewelry or other items of adornment.
Maybe the syntax including the word "or" confused you .... this translates as "Gold, Silver, Numismatic coins, gold bullion, silver bullion, platinum bullion, in the form of jewelry or other adornments."
I am a bit puzzled overall by this issue, I've seen the issue of Texas sales tax on coins raised a couple times, I'm finally pouring through my orders looking for Texas buyers and I'm finding a lot of TX Sales Tax. I know my items don't have listing issues because I'm extremely careful to ensure tax exemption when applicable, and this is a wide variety of coins I'm seeing taxed on my orders page, so this does seem to either be an issue of eBay or an issue of understanding the law, because I've seen no other instances or complaints about sales tax from buyers.
As I've read the quoted law, most/all coins are tax exempt (including "numismatic" coins). I don't understand what gives.
12345jamesstamps
·2 years agoI took it from the internet but didn't want to write a whole book.
numismatic ...definition in dictionary..."adjective...of or relating to the study or collection of coins, tokens, and paper money"...not my words.
"Numismatics is the study of coins and other currency units and is usually associated with he appraisal and collection of rare coins."...not my words
ajs_coins_and_alchemy
·2 years ago@12345jamesstamps
Thank you for reiterating the Numismatics definition you provided, but that is not the one I took issue with. I clearly said I took issue with "Numismatic Coins" definition as defined as "crafted for collecting" as that is horribly false at worst and horribly misleading at best.
I also stand by my other point that laws, when written, often have sections in the law defining the terms they use. This is a quote from the Texas law we are both referencing, where they define Numismatic coin for us. While I take issue with the definition you provided, it's all moot because the law's definition is the only one that matters.
(3) Numismatic coin--A coin that is not used as a medium of exchange or whose price depends more on characteristics such as beauty, rarity, and condition than on its metal content or its face value.
12345jamesstamps
·2 years agoI forgot what the issue was...LOL.
jbrt
·2 years agoSorry you are incorrect, read the exemption again. It says the exemption does not apply if they are crafted into jewelry or items of adornment. I live in Texas and and ebay is the only place I've ran across that charges sales tax for collectible coins. Heritage does not charge me sales tax on coins and they are in Texas.
dbfolks166mt
·2 years agoSorry you are incorrect, read the exemption again. It says the exemption does not apply if they are crafted into jewelry or items of adornment. I live in Texas and and ebay is the only place I've ran across that charges sales tax for collectible coins. Heritage does not charge me sales tax on coins and they are in Texas.
Read the OP's post and look at their sold items. Nothing is "crafted into jewelry or items of adornment". Everything the OP has sold, at least in the last 90 days, should be exempt from sales tax if it was sold to a buyer in Texas. EBay has an issue with their code but given there are over 10,000+ sales tax laws that is understandable.
jbrt
·2 years agoI did, I was disagreeing with posters who said Texas collects sales tax for numismatics and took what I had posted out of context. The only way taxes should be collected is if the coins were fashioned into jewelry. I bought a few coins off ebay last year and wasn't charged sales tax. Tried to buy some this week and ebay is charging sales tax. Not messing around with trying to get the state to refund the tax so I wont be buying coins off ebay.
dbfolks166mt
·2 years agoI did, I was disagreeing with posters who said Texas collects sales tax for numismatics and took what I had posted out of context. The only way taxes should be collected is if the coins were fashioned into jewelry. I bought a few coins off ebay last year and wasn't charged sales tax. Tried to buy some this week and ebay is charging sales tax. Not messing around with trying to get the state to refund the tax so I wont be buying coins off ebay.
My apologies happens on occasion when I miss the link and people change the OP's original message intent.
oldwestgold
·2 years agoYes, the exemption is in the post. Please read 2 & 3. Clear as day.
gamersbaystore
·2 years agoYes, your state does in fact charge sales taxes for purchases online. I see no exemptions for coins.
"Texas purchasers and sellers may think they can save money by not paying tax when buying or selling on the internet, but those transactions are subject to Texas sales and use tax."
"Marketplace providers that are engaged in business in Texas must collect and remit tax on all sales by marketplace sellers."
https://comptroller.texas.gov/taxes/publications/94-171.php
12345jamesstamps
·2 years agoGood catch...
kenscorner
OP2 years agosee jrbt comment. You are incorrect. No sales tax in Texas on coins.
ajs_coins_and_alchemy
·2 years ago@kenscorner
What's the item # for the listing that was charged tax. 99.999% of the time this is a listing issue (not just category but often issues within the Item Specifics section), but I reviewed your recently sold's and don't see one that stands out as an obvious listing error
kenscorner
OP2 years agoNope no error on my part.
ajs_coins_and_alchemy
·2 years agoUnderstood, most times it's a seller who listed as Bullion > Bars/Rounds but didn't list Item Specs as .999 Silver so it triggers taxes. I clearly see on my end that I have 6 taxed items and IK it's not my end. So Idk whats up, this is pretty expansive of an issue so either:
A) we are mis-reading or mis-interpretting the law
B) Ebay screwed up.
I tend to think we are missing something with regards to the law because eBay has plenty of lawyers and wouldn't expose themselves to legal liability for incorrectly charging sales tax. No matter what we say, eBay is a major corporation, they pay people to make sure they don't screw up these types of things. Their coding and programming may suck but they're super careful to not break the law.
kenscorner
OP2 years agoItem ID: 315359845592
sin-n-dex
·2 years agoIt's in Australia pre-decimal, so it should be tax-free if coin categories are tax exempt. There's whole other discussion here on bullion that I don't know anything about (since I don't deal in bullion).
I do know for fact the Australia COMMEMORATIVE category charges tax to some states that are tax-exempt for coins. It is possible the pre-decimal category has tax because the coins are no longer legal tender... that's sometimes the definition, if it's legal tender or not, and based on the listed category will determine if you have to pay tax or not.
C.
ajs_coins_and_alchemy
·2 years ago@sin-n-dex
Just an FYI ... I'm not sure about foreign commemorative, however US Commemorative taxability issue is solved when the seller lists the Denomination in the Item Specs category. That one I figured out by a LOT of trial and error... Not sure if that translates to foreign commemorative coinage
I've been able to figure out and answer most taxability questions for the issues posed on the forum, the Texas issue is a real conundrum for me as I've got a number of US coinage orders that taxed buyers in TX but two that didn't. No rhyme or reason, Pennies, Quarters, Franklin Half Dollar all in proper categories.
lacemaker3
·2 years ago@ajs_coins_and_alchemy, is there possibly a time interval difference between the ones that did and did not have sales tax charged? Maybe the way eBay interpreted the law changed at some point? This has happened before.
sin-n-dex
·2 years ago^^this^^
sounds like the reason they were charged tax.
I do happen to know certain coin categories charge tax and some don't...
C.
oldwestgold
·2 years agoOoops, Looks like the info you provided isn't correct. Read below.
dbfolks166mt
·2 years agoSomething either you or the buyer or both need to contact eBay about. This probably happens more than most buyers or sellers realize given the 10,000+ individual state sales tax laws.
simba6
·2 years agoThey can't get if from eBay. They have to contact their state's tax office and get the forms for a refund of sales tax collected in error. They submit that with their state income tax or an amended tax form.