mam98031 • Volunteer Community Member • Buyer/Seller since 1999
Regards,
While some of the categories will temporarily see some small savings overall, others will see a fee increase right away due to the fact that sales tax will now be calculated at rates as high as 21% for certain sellers under certain circumstances.
Which categories?
But even those sellers who will initially see a very small savings overall in fees will eventually see those savings disappear in the future the moment that eBay decides to tap the throttle just a little bit and raises those new Simplified category based FVF by say 0.5%. 0.5% does not sound like much does it? It's only half a point. But it will be. Because now that new category based Simplified FVF applies to sales tax.
At this point I am just speculating but I would guess that eBay will raise these new Simplified Fess for sellers sometime in late 2021 when the overwhelming majority of sellers are already enrolled in Managed Payments. No need to do that now as that would rock the boat and probably hurt their current Managed Payment seller on boarding campaign.
I personally think this is a bit unfair. There is plenty to learn about MP right now. If we start throwing in all the WHAT IFS, it is going to only confuses and complicate learning what the July entry actually means to sellers going into the program. Just my opinion, but I think we are better off spending our time LEARNING the facts about MP and how it will affect us for the July entry.
So you want people to consider something that you don't know or we don't know will happen, but consider this when you are trying to work through all the other stuff you are trying to learn before you decide if you will enter MP or leave Ebay?? How is this helpful??
Almost half of my business that I conduct here on eBay falls into the media category. So I and my fellow media sellers will now get the privilege of paying 14.35% on all sales tax that eBay collects; starting July 20. And that rate of 14.35% applies irregardless of whether or not a media seller is a store subscriber or not.
The exact same rate of change is happening to every category whether you have a store or not when you enter MP. You take the current rate you are paying right now, ADD 2.9% and SUBTRACT 0.55%.
So for Media Non Store owner & Store owners it is currently 12%, in MP it will be 12% + 2.9% -.55% = 14.35%
Now keeping in mind that the highest sales tax rate is likely about 10% [many areas or less]. So 10% of the money you receive will be charged with the Simplified Fee that includes a FVF. Something we have never had to pay before and is annoying at best, but something I personally strongly disagree with. But with that said, at least 90% of the money processed on this transaction is at a REDUCED rate over what we are currently paying. Which is why in most cases it is likely that you will see little change in your overall fees.
But to get a true idea of what these changes mean to you, you have got to run the numbers on more than a couple sales. I ran mine for the month of May's sales. I ended up overall with a 0.71% savings. That was with 78% of my sales taxable and 22% non taxable. So if you aren't going to look at a good section of your sales in comparison you will not get an accurate view of how these changes will actually impact your account.
@vntg*salad wrote:
Lets hope that Ebay managed payments will take that head scratching of paypal and the tax thing away...a little at least
I wouldn't count on that. eBay will also charge Sellers ALL the fees on the sales tax amount. The problem will come in with regard to how eBay handles it on their 90 day reporting cycle and if they give Sellers a column with the tax amount to deduct from the gross sales.
@mr_lincoln wrote:
@vntg*salad wrote:
Lets hope that Ebay managed payments will take that head scratching of paypal and the tax thing away...a little at leastI wouldn't count on that. eBay will also charge Sellers ALL the fees on the sales tax amount. The problem will come in with regard to how eBay handles it on their 90 day reporting cycle and if they give Sellers a column with the tax amount to deduct from the gross sales.
According to some of the examples those currently in MP have posted, all the details are in the downloadable report.
@twnpopcards wrote:
@bubbles1234567 wrote:
My point is, here's how your order should work:
The buyer pays PayPal.
PayPal sends the sales tax amount back to eBay.
PayPal charges a fee on the gross total collected.
This is the gross total that I sold my item for and it makes logical sense for me to pay PayPal fees on the sold price. Now if eBay wants to stop automatically collecting taxes and put that burden on the sellers, then that's a different story.The way that Paypal charges their fees on the Sales Tax collected is no different that if you were a brick and mortar operation, as they are also charged the discount fee on the entire amount paid by CC. But in the future for those using Managed Payments, Ebay not only plans on collecting their discount fee on the items sold plus the sales tax but has recently announced that they are now going to also charge the Seller the Final Value Fee on the Sales Tax. Last I read this was only for those that are enrolled in Ebays Managed Payments and begins I believe in July of this year, but according to Ebay all Sellers are going to eventually be moved to Managed Payments. Of course this does not appear to be a requirement for their Chinese Partners since the Seller must use Sellers Hub to be in the Managed Payments program and last I read they are still not being forced to use this platform nor join Managed Payments.
That depends. Ebay has said that most US sellers will be in MP by the end of 2021. Likely the vast majority by the end of 2020. Some categories sellers sell in are a bit problematic for MP right now, so those sellers will likely be the last to go in.
Ebay has not yet announced when or if they are going to migrate many of their other sites in various countries, not just China. It is likely that Ebay wants it worldwide but certainly there would be different requirements in different countries, so I'm sure it is pretty complicated.
I know your intentions are good, but throwing in stuff like If a seller is in the penalty box on fees or if some day down the road Ebay raises fees, etc. IMHO just make things more difficult to understand and it is just unnecessary.
What you are saying is important, just IMHO not right now. The first thing we need to do is wrap our heads around the rules of MP starting in July. Personally I think that is quite enough for the time being. All this other stuff can be discussed AFTER we have a clear understanding of MP as it will be in July.
But said I thing the penalty fee is 5%, not 7%.
Running together US sales and the fees associate with them and International sales kind of creates the same thing. More confusion than is necessary. At least for now as there are some open questions on international sales with MP that have not yet been answered.
And International sales has ALWAYS carried a higher money processing fee. There is nothing unusual in that.
It is important to keep in mind that it is a small portion of sellers in the penalty phase for fees.
I don't know how much more I will actually ask of you because the way you present it I think misrepresents what most sellers will see or experience and I just don't think it is helpful to the community. Some may think you are saying these fees are what they will pay and it simply isn't the case.
That is just me, you of course have the write to post what you feel you must. I just think we should try to hope the majority of the members and not concentrate on the minority unless they ask questions, then of course if we have answers we should share it.
I've posted a few times not that the 4% conversion fee isn't something a seller would likely have to pay because Ebay requires International buyers to pay with US $$s. So for now we are safe on that one.
No need to answer any more questions for me.
