eBay automatically collecting sales tax on sales made to the State of Washington as of Jan 1, 2019

[piedmontvarietystore]

I sold an item to a buyer in Washington State on 1/2/2019.  I am a small seller and I do not charge sales tax ( I pay it out of my own pocket for the few sales I make to my own state).  When I printed a packing slip it shows $10 of sales tax being charged to the buyer.  I called eBay and they said this is new for 2019.  They said that they are now collecting and remitting sales tax for Washington State. 

I went to the Washington State Department of Revenue website and the thresholds for remote sellers is $10,000 or 200 items to trigger collecting/remitting sales tax.

During 2019 I will never exceed $10,000 or sell more than 199 items to Washington State. I don't remember getting any communication from eBay telling us that they will collect and remit sales tax automatically starting January 1st.

[luxgoods]

Yes I received the same message for an item I sold in Washington State.  Like always, Ebay just goes ahead and does this **bleep** without telling us.  They are real good at sending me e-mails that my items are in peoples cart but when it come to the important stuff we have to find out when ebay makes the descision for us.  The people at ebay making these descisions have no clue regarding on line businesses and that extends directly to their leader who is really in the dark and hopefully on his way out.

[lacemaker3 · Accepted solution]

@piedmontvarietystore, @luxgoods

You may not be required to collect sales tax for Washington as a remote seller, but Washington also has a Marketplace Facilitator law, which requires eBay as a Marketplace to collect and remit sales tax on the purchases which are facilitated on eBay's website.

This change was announced several times last year, and here is the help page which has an up-to-date list of the phase-in plan for this:

https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/fees-credits-invoices/taxes-import-charges?id=4121#section4

[piedmontvarietystore]

Lacemaker3- thanks for setting me straight! I don't remember the announcements and thought that eBay was still working on a solution but was aiming towards leaving compliance up to individual sellers. It is nice of eBay to take care of this for us through automation. I also believe it could be a money maker for them. They can collect the taxes, hold it until payment is due and be accruing lots of interest money. The costs to them would probably be minimal because of computers doing all of the work (at least after they get the initial programing done).

[lacemaker3]

eBay was hoping that the laws would allow individual sellers to comply without undue hardship, but they aren't collecting sales tax now just to be nice. They are doing it because some states have passed Marketplace Facilitator laws, which require eBay as a Marketplace to collect and remit sales tax on purchases which were facilitated by eBay.

The cost is not really minimal, because both computers and programmers cost quite a lot of money, for capital purchase, maintenance, salaries and benefits. This project will not be something that can just be added on to somebody's workload.  They will have had to create a team to implement the project, which has to include a lot of legal analysis of the laws to determine exactly what the requirements are, before figuring out how to implement them, and then there will be ongoing work needed to keep track of the tax intake and submit it correctly according to each state's different requirements. I would estimate that this is not a net money maker for eBay, it's an expense.

[johnrj1226]

@piedmontvarietystore

"I don't remember getting any communication from eBay telling us that they will collect and remit sales tax automatically starting January 1st."

10-29-2018 04:13:58 PM (PDT)  This was  posted in the Annoucement Box (Tile) on the SH Overview page.  Title in large font - just like this.

UPDATE: Ongoing Changes in How Internet Sales Tax May Impact Your Business

Read the following link for more details - there were others easy to search for them.

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Announcements/UPDATE-Ongoing-Changes-in-How-Internet-Sales-Tax-May-Imp...

horses and water

[piedmontvarietystore]

I went back through my emails and I did not get one about the Oct 29 announcement. If it was important it should have been conveyed in an email to all sellers. I did get one on Sept 18 about the Hurricane Florence update and MANY others about "tips for selling my items" and MANY about people having "eyes on my items".

[lacemaker3]

The information was posted in Announcements in the Community, under Seller News, not emails.

I didn't post a link to the announcements, because the help page is more up to date. I thought that providing the information was the most important thing.

https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/fees-credits-invoices/taxes-import-charges?id=4121#section4

But the announcements are here, if you want to see them:

Oct 29, 2018 UPDATE: Ongoing Changes in How Internet Sales Tax May Impact Your Business

Sep 13, 2018 Upcoming changes in how Internet Sales Tax may apply to your eBay business

[autopartspuller]

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@piedmontvarietystore wrote:

I went back through my emails and I did not get one about the Oct 29 announcement. If it was important it should have been conveyed in an email to all sellers. I did get one on Sept 18 about the Hurricane Florence update and MANY others about "tips for selling my items" and MANY about people having "eyes on my items".

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He was speaking of the "Seller Announcements" on the Seller Hub, not your ebay messages.  If you have your seller hub customized, you may have removed it.  If this is the case, I would put it back.  It is an excellent tool for keeping up with Ebay changes.  This is where they post the important information that will directly effect your seller account.

[piedmontvarietystore]

I don't use Seller Hub. It was too confusing when it was first implemented so I found a backdoor to the old seller interface and have been using it since. My point is again, if the announcement was important it should have been conveyed through various avenues including email. I get the emails from "eBay Main Street" with important policy updates and other news and the Oct 29 announcement was not covered.

[johnrj1226]

If you still use the old way there was an Annoucement link there too on the lower left side as I recall.  One just has to read them when they are  posted.   Can't count how many mailed communications,  e-mails, voice mail, text messages etc. I've sent to folks that never were read because they were "too busy" with other things, issues  or said they didn't get them or gave some other pop corn** answer.

** lots of air, little substance

[lacemaker3]

@piedmontvarietystore, they don't send emails about every change.

They don't even always post announcements about every change. There have been some unannounced changes, and members were protesting that they should have been  announced in advance, but they weren't. eBay just says they don't announce every little thing. Complaining about it doesn't help.

[autopartspuller]

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@piedmontvarietystore wrote:
I don't use Seller Hub. It was too confusing when it was first implemented so I found a backdoor to the old seller interface and have been using it since. My point is again, if the announcement was important it should have been conveyed through various avenues including email. I get the emails from "eBay Main Street" with important policy updates and other news and the Oct 29 announcement was not covered.

---

The announcements section is also on the old system as well.  Again if it is customized, you may have removed it.  You should add it back in.  All important seller announcements or updates are given there.

[normajeanriely]

I buy from a Canadian seller and they are STILL collecting sales tax from me . Now How is Ebay going to SEND this tax to Olympia when the Canadian seller doesn't have a Washington State business license ? I had a small business in Washington for years. You remit your tax thru your business license number. You can't just send a check to Olympia ( the capital ) and say '' this is for so and so's taxes " As stated, you remit using your business license number.
So is Ebay keeping this Canadian seller's tax contribution ? or does Ebay now have to have a business license in Washington State and every other state that charges sales tax ? This is going to raise the cost of doing business on Ebay. Someone has to remit this tax for probably 100's if not a 1000 different sellers. A book keepers nightmare !

[wei.huha]

just don't buy or sell on ebay anymore. simple