mam98031 • Volunteer Community Member • Buyer/Seller since 1999
@partfinds wrote:It is confusing to see sales tax on the seller part. It is buyer’s part and if Ebay takes care of it then it should be shown in the details (on the seller part). I was confused thinking it was sales tax charge to me for service ebay sold me or something. I saw from other posters that I am not the only one confused.
Personally I think some people are making more out of this than is warranted or necessary. Sales tax showed in Paypal too. But it seems that because Ebay is doing certain things that some never paid attention to while in PP, it is suddenly new and maybe even wrong.
And you are right, you aren't the only one with these issues. That doesn't mean any of you are right, it simply means that while in PP many simply did not pay attention to the details. But when they moved over to MP, they did and suddenly Ebay was doing all kinds of things wrong that weren't happening in PP, which was really made up of a bunch of assumptions and the lack of paying attention to the details.
@k33dd4nch wrote:It should be illegal for eBay to make a profit (or markup) sales tax. Maybe it is illegal. No other online or brick and mortal retailer does this.
If you buy something at Walmart or Target for $100 and sales tax is $10, Walmart or Target charges you $110. They can't just decide to charge you $11.26 instead of $10 for sales tax (a 12.55% markup on the sales tax owed) and then keep that extra $1.26 for themselves. That is what eBay is doing here and it's outrageous.
Well yes and no. Credit cards charge their processing fee on the total amount charged and that does include sales tax. Paypal charges their fee based on the full amount, regardless if any of the payment has sales tax in it.
When you are at the B&M making a purchase, you are the Buyer, NOT the seller. So not an accurate comparison. But the fees the B&M pays is accurate to compare to the seller and as I stated above they do pay fees on taxes and have since the beginning.
So if anything illegal is going on here, what law is Ebay breaking and what about all the other's that do the same.
@k33dd4nch wrote:I doesn't matter who is who in my scenario or who the payment processor is. Nobody, anywhere, marks up the sales tax they charge by 12.55% and then pockets that markup as a fee for using their service.
I would be willing to bet my eBay earnings for 2021 that if many state's Attorneys General found out that eBay was adding a 12.55% fee to their state's sale tax, we would be seeing one or more lawsuits.
It does matter as I explained up thread a few posts. In fact your example was good with the exception that you don't want to acknowledge that the B&M is equal to a Seller on Ebay. Not sure why, but they are in this story of yours. And those B&Ms DO PAY A FEE as the SELLER on taxes on every single credit card transaction, I'm not sure about Debit Cards, but likely there is a similar fee.
You are however correct that Ebay's fee for a non store owner in certain categories is 12.55% and that is higher than a processing fee by a credit card. However Ebay does have to pay those credit card fees too.
I think you will find a lot of people that would take that bet. I get it that you don't like it. None of us really do. But because we don't like it does not make it illegal. Tell us WHAT law are they breaking??? You aren't the first one in the past 17 months that has said this. And when asked for what law, they either tap dance around it or will not reply. This has been policy for sellers in MP for over 17 months now, you'd think that by now someone would be able to find it if it fact it exists.
@iamalwaysright wrote:Yes. A lot of sellers noticed this long ago.
And they learned that they need to correct their pricing to cover fees. Again, the FVF on shipping has been happening for over ELEVEN years. NOT a new issue.
