Sales tax plus interanlal transaction fee both for international buyers?
Noticed this before and it caught my eye but just happened again.Doesnt seem to sit right. I have a international buyer and had to pay the international transaction fee on the payment becuase their registered address is out of the country. Thats fine but it Its going to a parcel center to be shipped to them. Is this right having to also pay the sales tax when the final destination is not in the USA? I would think if they are going to do this , than the international exchange fee should be added into the buyers final price and washed for the seller ,not deducted for the proceeds.
13 comments
btjfitter
OP1 year agoI was and am enrolled in Ebay International shipping.
monroe67
·1 year ago"I was and am enrolled in Ebay International shipping."
Apparently, the specific buyer in that specific transaction did not purchase your item with eBay's International Shipping program. That is absolutely, perfectly allowable on eBay.
Accept it: On that specific transaction, you paid eBay an additional 1.65% fee on the total paid by your buyer.
The fees you pay to eBay, including that 1.65% International Fee, are generally deductible when you are preparing your federal income tax return materials early next year.
albertabrightalberta
·1 year ago@btjfitter
YOU pay the international fee on the transaction because you are the one being paid.
The BUYER pays the sales tax for the state to which the item is being delivered.
It's 2 separate charges.
"the international exchange fee should be added into the buyers final price and washed for the seller ,not deducted for the proceeds."
Sellers' prices should be high enough to cover their costs. As the seller, you should increase your prices by 1.65% (or 2%) so when you have a buyer who's registered in another country, it's the buyer who is paying the fee.
powell-collectibles
·1 year agoUnderstood that you want to have your costs plus an assumption on profit priced into your items. But I’ve never understood the advice to just increase your prices by 2% to cover a potential international fee. If a supplier could increase his prices by 2%, and it wouldn’t have an effect on the number of items sold, why wouldn’t he have already done this? At some point, don’t sellers have to look at market prices? Or at least think about the competition?
mam98031
·1 year agoOr just use EIS and there is no international fee.
mam98031
·1 year ago@btjfitter
Sellers do not pay STATE sales tax. If applicable the buyer ALWAYS pays the State sales tax.
As for the 1.65% International fee, we have been paying that for a very long time. Back when PayPal was our money processor, we also paid it then. So to concern with it a couple decades later, seems a bit odd.
If you want to avoid it, opt into EIS. For those of us that use the EIS policy to ship internationally, one of the perks of the program is no international fee.
EIS is a great program. I encourage you to read about it and decide for yourself if it will work for you. It takes almost all the risk for international shipping off the sellers.
Feel free to come back and ask for advice on what to do.
https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/shipping-items/setting-shipping-options/ebay-international-shipping-program?id=5348
https://pages.ebay.com/internationalshippingprogram/seller/terms/
monroe67
·1 year ago"Noticed this before and it caught my eye but just happened again. Doesnt seem to sit right. I have a international buyer and had to pay the international transaction fee on the payment becuase their registered address is out of the country. Thats fine but it Its going to a parcel center to be shipped to them. Is this right having to also pay the sales tax when the final destination is not in the USA? I would think if they are going to do this , than the international exchange fee should be added into the buyers final price and washed for the seller ,not deducted for the proceeds."
Your buyer, apparently not a resident or even probably a citizen of the United States, is paying sales tax to the state where the Thing is being sent. That's because of the laws of that state, and I think that's probably a good thing !!
Many Asian and/or European eBay buyers have contracted with freight forwarding companies ("a parcel center") that are based in the states of Delaware and Oregon. What makes those states so special? They do not charge or collect sales taxes on anything, so those buyers never pay any sales taxes on their eBay purchases. There are three other states with no state-wide sales taxes: Alaska, Montana, and New Hampshire. I think that Florida has some special sales-tax-exemption rules for freight-forwarding companies in certain Florida zip codes.
stainlessenginecovers
·1 year agoIt may not 'sit' right, but it has been that way since Marketplace Selling Sites have to collect and remit sales tax.
The 'international' fee is something else, and when paypal was processing, it was about 1.5% then too, back as far as I've been selling fulltime 2011.
Has nothing to do with the 'final' destination as nobody REALLY knows where that is.
A buyer could have a German issued Credit Card yet live in Russia but ship things to California and then having that 'Freight Forwarder' ship to his Grandma in Norway.
International fee kicks in because it's a German Credit Card
Sales Tax kicks in because it's going to a US State that requires sales tax be paid.
The only 2 thing that matter are
a.) The 'original payment' (where's it coming from, outside the US, there is a Trans Fee that the SELLER pays.
b.) The 1st 'shipment location' and if it's a 'state' that does 'sales tax' then the buyer pays those taxes and the seller pays the 'ebay final value fee' on those taxes.
powell-collectibles
·1 year agoThe international fee is love against sellers regardless of payment source currency. An international buyer is just one that is has a registered account in another country. You could have someone registered in the UK, staying in the United States, having an item shipped to his location in the United States, paying with a US dollar/US Bank credit card, and that international fee would still be levied. That’s how the eBay policy is set up. It doesn’t matter much – the vast majority of international transactions with fees will be paid for using a foreign credit card, payment with a foreign currency.
monroe67
·1 year ago"International fee kicks in because it's a German Credit Card" FALSE. See Response #6.
"Sales Tax kicks in because it's going to a US State that requires sales tax be paid." TRUE.
bashort
·1 year agothe "international transaction fee " is a fee anytime the buyer pays in anything other than US dollars. Happens sometimes to items shipped from the US to the US
monroe67
·1 year ago"the "international transaction fee " is a fee anytime the buyer pays in anything other than US dollars." FALSE.
Again -- here's a cut-and-paste from eBay's User Agreement concerning their International Fee. Read it carefully and you will not see the word "dollar" or any mention of a payment method. However, the word "address" is repeated:
[Start of Quote]
International fee
If your registered address is in the US and you offer eBay International Shipping for your eligible listings, you won't be charged an international fee when your eligible item sells.
If you're not using eBay International Shipping to ship your item, we charge an international fee if either:
This fee is calculated as 1.65% of the total amount of the sale and is automatically deducted from your sales.
If your registered address is not in the US, please refer to the fee page for your country or region of residence for your international fee information.
[End of Quote]
luckythewinner
·1 year agoeBay charges sales tax because the state to which you are shipping has a law that requires them to. eBay is not going to lower their fees simply because you do not like a particular state's sales tax law.