Ebay charging wrongly sales tax

[vimvim]

I just won an auction, and when I wanted to pay I saw that Ebay wants to charge sales tax for this item.

I live in Arizona, and here sales tax (actually: transaction privilege tax) has to be charged if a seller's "annual gross retail sales or income from online sales into Arizona is more than $200,000 in 2019." See also here: https://azdor.gov/news-events-notices/news/new-tpt-law-remote-sellers-and-marketplace-facilitators-s...

This seller is a private seller with altogether 84 transactions during his whole Ebay career (and 4 feedback in 2019). The auction was about a privately bought, used, and sold item. It is impossible that this seller sells for more than $200,000 in 2019 into Arizona.

I contacted Ebay about this, but so far they don't want to remove the sales tax. Their "sales tax department" is now supposed to contact me. Let's see whether that happens and to what avail. I will certainly not pay, even it that means that I cannot buy anything from Ebay in the future.

Do others have had similar experiences? Could they be solved?

[dougers31]

I've been getting taxed on shipping fees as well...  Just seems wrong 😞

[7606dennis]

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@jpai1277 wrote:

I agree. I refuse to buy any item that is used on Ebay and pay a sales tax. You can sell items on Facebook marketplace and not be charged any sales tax.

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Of course, you are still legally responsible for pay the sales/use tax to your state.  Unless you intend to break your state's laws, but that is another matter I suppose.

[7606dennis]

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@jpai1277 wrote:

Another stupid reply. Just because the state passes an unfair law that the voters did not approve doesn't mean we have to put up with it. Fight the law and protest by not buying anything. Contact your senators.

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Unless you state's constitution doesn't give your state's legislature the right to levy taxes, I don't believe that your your unfair law argument will fly.  However, if you feel that you can live by fully being self-sufficient and not needing to purchase any goods or services that you don't produce yourself, feel free.

[7606dennis]

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@dougers31 wrote:

I've been getting taxed on shipping fees as well...  Just seems wrong 😞

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Some state's consider shipping to be taxable.  You options are to relocate to a state that doesn't or to try to convince your legislators that it should be taxable.  Relocation may have more of a chance of success though, in my opinion.

[sukmcavo0]

I am wondering when Arizona will start to start sales tax for used items sold at garage sales.... Ridiculous.

[sukmcavo0]

What's   next  -   sales  tax  for  used  junk   sold  on  Craigs list  ????

[recycle_pc]

If I am reading this all correctly, ebay calculates, collects, and remits the sales tax, right?
Does ebay collect the sales tax from the seller later? Because the sales tax on an item I just sold to a buyer in AZ was sent to me via paypal with the rest of the transaction payment.

[nobody*s_perfect]

eBay will take that money from PayPal.

[mrdutch1001]

If you check your PayPal transaction closely you will also see that PayPal removes that tax amount shown on the line as: "Tax collected by eBay"

[soh.maryl]

Not sure what informational site you checked about whether or not state sales tax is charged on internet purchases shipped to your state, but Idaho jumped on board with this as of June 1, 2019, according to the information in Alara.

And, if you are leaving eBay because of this, please consider that: (1) You have been paying state sales taxes on purchases in local B&M stores, apparently without complaint, and, (2) ALL internet purchases will be subject to state sales tax for your state.  This is not limited to just eBay.  

[7606dennis]

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@sukmcavo0 wrote:
I am wondering when Arizona will start to start sales tax for used items sold at garage sales.... Ridiculous.

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While I'm not familiar with Arizona's tax laws, most states that charge their residents sales tax also have a use tax statute to go along with it requiring their residents to pay use tax on items that they purchase outside the state and have it delivered to them within the state and any purchases that the make for which sales tax has not been collected.  You will need to check with your state's tax agency in order to confirm if your state has such a statute and how garage sale purchases are handled in your state.  I believe some states have a line to enter the amount of use tax owed on their state income tax return, but as I said, I'm not familiar with Arizona's laws.

Of course, it would be nice, at least for antique collectors and those buying pre-owned vehicles, if their state deemed used items not to be taxable.   There are, of course, states that exempt art and certain other items from sales tax.  There are, I believe, four or five that do not charge their residents sales tax at all.  However, I don't believe Arizona is among them.

I believe this response also covers your next post, sukmcavo0.

[fer9990]

So you would think then that Ebay should be paying tax from the revenue they are getting from the seller from the Posting and the + 30 cents that they charge everyone and not off the top of the seller or from the buyer. It sounds like they are double dipping.  I believe this needs to be looked into. There are less sales because of this on ebay and everyone is starting to ditch ebay and go other places....

[gar-9654]

This is very interesting... I too live in an area in Texas that has a 6.25% tax rate ( not the 8.25% of incorporated areas). My question is, What is Ebay  doing with the 2.05% additional tax (profit) charged to us in each sell? It sure could add up to a whole lot of $$$$$$ at the end of each year for Ebay.

[doho6974]

@gar-9654 add your zip +4 to get an accurate rate

[3eyedfishcatcher]

This is a clear example as to why eBay need to go back to showing a buyer the tax they will need to pay before check out!!!! There is no reason they cant show the tax to the buyer before hand. Even a auction item they can show what the tax currently will be. The worst part is they used to do this when sellers selected to collect tax them self in the listing. 

Show a buyer a unexpected cost after they have committed to buy the person they will blame is the seller not the site for a poorly planned and executed change.