Inceptions
wooden_flower Volunteer Community Mentor.
Like all other payment processors, the fee is on the total sale.
eBay wanted to be able to charge one simple rate on the total from the buyer, just like paypal did. You paid a fee on the sales tax to paypal.
The total rate is a bit lower than the old eBay + paypal rates, to allow for the higher fee on the tax - that way a single rate can be used. It comes out about the same as before - sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less.
Not charging the fee on the tax would only complicate the calculation - a higher % would be charged on the item and shipping resulting in the same fee.
