eBay Acting as Tax Collection Agency: Need for An Action

[desertmodels_uae]

eBay 3 years ago to extended its tax collection agency on sales orders to include beside the United States: Euro Zone VAT collection under IOSS, UK HMRC, Australia, Switzerland, and Singapore for international sales/sellers. 

Also, with that change the T&C's for the seller obligations for shipment documents were revised (became mandatory to attach correct custom declaration form and attach eBay/Tax invoices withe shipment documents)

The arrangement is working fine with US CBP, Australia, Singapore, and Switzerland: they all accept international shipments going through borders that has declaration and invoices as a proof for taxes collected in advance by an assigned agent (eBay). 

However, the Euro Zone VAT IOSS and UK HMRC are not working. Custom authorities in many European Union countries and UK HMRC don't recognize the fact eBay extends its tax collection agency beyond its respective tax territory and ignore all declarations / documentations included with the parcel. 

eBay in these respective countries needs to take one of 2 actions: 

1. Reach out to authorities to inform them that eBay is collecting in advance taxes on international purchases coming outside the tax territory.

or

2. eBay seize to collect taxes in advance on purchases from international sellers, that because it is not mandatory (confirmed in official emails from respective authorities) for the marketplace facilitators (like eBay) to collect in advance taxes on such purchase (because customs authorities will collect it on entry)

[slippinjimmy]

I ship to the EU and UK frequently, I am not having any of these issues. There were a few problems in the first few months but that is now many years ago.

What shipping service are you using? Do you include (on the outside of the package) invoices showing VAT collection?

The shipping services I use all do pre-clearence electronically so essentially no delays passing through customs and no attempts to double collect VAT.

[reallynicestamps]

Are your customers complaining about prepaid taxes and duty?

Or are you complaining because eBay is charging a service fee for collecting those import fees?

Buyers hate to pay any sort of shipping fees. And that includes import fees.

If it is slightly more painless for the buyer to pay them in advance, and not be surprised by them on the doorstep, that happy customer would be a benefit for the seller.

And when eBay collects import fees in advance, the "customs delay" scam is impossible.

I am assuming that you agree that eBay really is remitting those import fees to the appropriate nation.

BTW, Revenue Canada has subcontracted officers collecting Canadian import fees  in the eIS plant. I assume that other nations have the same arrangement.

It's a rough number, but eBay collects between 5% and 10% of the selling prices as "tax" which includes sales taxes and duty including the EU's VAT. 

Then I pay 13. 5% of that 10% as a service fee.

Which if my decimal point is in the right spot, is ~1.35% of the selling price, and is a deductible expense.