The line you cite indicates that the person making the sale is not responsible for collecting taxes in Illinois. If you read further, you will notice that the marketplace facilitator (in this case, eBay) is responsible to collect and remit those taxes.
In fact it says the opposite. "Persons making sales to Illinois purchasers that are subject to Illinois Retailers' Occupation Tax (sales tax) " means normal registered retailers who collect tax themselves. We are not subject to marketplace taxes because of this. In these cases, the marketplace facilitator should not collect in-state tax themselves. This is the way that Amazon and other markets do it. Use tax applies to out of state sales, not in-state sales. The tax eBay collects is a use tax.
Whoever put eBay's system together needs to hire some qualified people. They're also forcing the marketplace taxes thru sellers's accounts, which is not how the law is written. The side effect of this is that ebay sellers are incurring payment processing fees on the sales tax (paypal fees). If the marketplace facilitator processed the tax payment separately like they are supposed to, it wouldn't be included in the payment total at PayPal. The amount is small, but it's the principle, and it could add up for large sellers and high ticket sellers.
In terms of tax rate, keep in mind that Illinois requires tax to be paid on shipping as well as the item itself so long as the item is taxable.
Again, not true. The article you cited is also very clear about that. Certain conditions need be met, in particular, if a buyer opts for a shipping rate, shipping is not taxable. For free shipping and fixed rate shipping bundled into a price, it is taxable. For what the article claims, all eBay orders are charge shipping on a separate line unless the order is free shipping. That rule change by IL was confusing for everyone and there are even reports of legal trolls turning in large business that are not taxing shipping, to get tax whistleblower rewards.
if the buyer's ZIP Code doesn't include the whole "ZIP Plus 4" number, then eBy apparently charges the state maximum.
But the point is they shouldn't be charging it at all. If they were supposed to be charging it (in Illinois), it should be based on the seller's tax table/location, not the buyer's location. IL charges sales tax based on the point of sale, which is typical. Shipments from IL to IL are taxed based on the seller's location (origin-based state), so the in-state buyer's location is irrelevant. For use tax, the buyer's zip make sense, but use tax doesn't apply to in-state shipments.
They should also be charging the Use Tax rate on out of state purchases, not the Sales Tax rate. My understanding is the Home Rule Use Tax rates are not established, the state uses the 6.25% rate statewide, and there may be legal issues related to localities charging additional tax. This may vary in Chicago and other cities now or in the future. Our Sales Tax rate as of today is 7%, Use Tax is 6.25%.
https://www2.illinois.gov/rev/individuals/Pages/faqs-use-tax.aspx
To correct my original post, it looks like they are charging 8.1% (not 10%). That's charged on the item+shipping-handling. 6.99+2.75+.30 with tax at .78 So I think they are charging 8% on 6.99+2.75. The rates in the buyer's zip are 8.1% and 9.1% and the buyer did provide a zip+4. This could be the eBay rounding error that I reported in another thread. 8.1% would be .78894 and should be rounding up, but this could be eBay rounding down.
The tax doesn't match our rate, the state max, or the state use tax rate.
