Tax collected by eBay, but not by eBay.? what is this 3rd party commission they speak of?

[oldaudionz]

I was in the process of packing and shipping a recent sale to a customer when I logged into my PayPal account to double check payment, I was surprised to see a deduction from the sale as “ tax collected by eBay” along the normal PayPal fee.

Thinking that this was a little strange, I contacted eBay and asked why they were collecting tax from me when I am selling goods to someone in another country, as it would be the buyers responsibility to pay any import duty or tax, which eBay replied “ we haven’t collected any tax on this item”, they asked me to attach a photo of the transaction and send it to them, but their message system to support doesn’t allow any HTML or attachments to be included...

ok, this is getting weird I thought to myself, so I rang PayPal who had a look and were concerned that EBay wasn’t showing this deduction on my transactions,  they could see what I see, that EBay had collected tax.

PayPal did some digging around and the representative contacted her superior who advised that “ebay are allowing the collection of 3rd party comission” , it’s apparently something new and PayPal seemed a bit in the dark to what these 3rd party commissions were, or who the 3rd parties were?

So, I’m awaiting another reply to my messages from eBay, but in the meanwhile, 

Has anyone else experienced this issue?

[oldaudionz]

PS, I’m expecting that this is just a glitch, but interested in hearing if anyone else has had this happen.

[slippinjimmy]

Look at the payment details, it will show the taxes charged by eBay and then below it will show the same amount being sent back to eBay. The BUYER pays the sales tax, you pay the processing fees 2.9% on the Sales tax amount.

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Announcements/NOW-LIVE-New-Internet-Sales-Tax-changes-that-impact-you/...

[dhbookds]

You are in New Zealand, so may  be nuances we, on this US board, don't know about, I would ask on a local board..... Don't know if there is/you use an ebay GSP in NZ but the one in the US does collect international import taxes.......and is a 3rd party.........

[readabouthorses]

Was the sale to someone in the US who lives in one of the states that eBay is collecting sales tax for? It is never about the FROM and always about the TO when it comes to these sales tax collections. 

[ittybitnot]

 I contacted eBay and asked why they were collecting tax from me when I am selling goods to someone in another country, as it would be the buyers responsibility to pay any import duty or tax....

Was it shipped to a "reshipper" address in the US? 

[oldaudionz]

Good point, I have contacted the buyer and awaiting an answer, eBay have gone quiet on the issue all of a sudden. If I can’t get an answer / tax refunded from eBay I’ll more than likely just cancel the transaction, I’m not paying a total of ~20% in fees

[dtexley3]

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@oldaudionz wrote:

Good point, I have contacted the buyer and awaiting an answer, eBay have gone quiet on the issue all of a sudden. If I can’t get an answer / tax refunded from eBay I’ll more than likely just cancel the transaction, I’m not paying a total of ~20% in fees

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Why would you be paying 20% in fees?  The BUYER should have been charged for the tax/import duty/whatever and your overall fee % should not change.

[pink.fish.rule]

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@oldaudionz wrote:

Good point, I have contacted the buyer and awaiting an answer, eBay have gone quiet on the issue all of a sudden. If I can’t get an answer / tax refunded from eBay I’ll more than likely just cancel the transaction, I’m not paying a total of ~20% in fees

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Then your listings better state you don't ship to Australia or they'll be collecting 10% for that as well.

[oldaudionz]

I’m fairly well aware I don’t need to be paying 20% in fees.

messages seem to be going nowhere at the moment with mainly the same information am telling them being regurgitated back to me with the addition that it must be a charge by PayPal.

I was asked to include a screenshot or photo of the charge but Ebay’s support messaging system won’t allow HTML or any attachments.

I have tried to call Ebay but every time I try to get a phone number to ring from here I get the message “ The channel is temporarily unavailable”, as it has been for the past few months.

So, at present Ebay and PayPal are just blaming each other , I’ll give it one more day and if I don’t get any sense I think I’ll just cancel the transaction.

[disneyshopper]

You are located in New Zealand.

Where is the buyer located?  What is the SHIP TO address (what STATE if buyer is located in the USA)?

[oldaudionz]

CA is the state the buyer is located.

[oldaudionz]

Ok, well we have an answer, It appears that the tax was added to the transaction on top of the payment for the goods, PayPal then paid this back to eBay who passes this on to whatever authority.

Had Ebay admitted that they had collected this in the first place, I wouldn’t have gone down a wild goose chase, further heightened by PayPal being concerned that EBay new nothing of the deduction, which in turn led me in the wrong direction.

live and learn I guess......

[pink.fish.rule]

Seems to me the main issue is with customer service reps who are useless.