They are doing the same to Aussies when we purchase from OS.
The Aussie govt. has dumped the onus on collecting GST on the seller, who must then deliver it to the Aussie govt.
Ebay had to get on board, or stop the world from selling to Australians.
Other govts. may have taken the same tactic.

 

Thank wayfair. They changed taxes in the us forever.

 

Ya the law at this time really only prevents the fed from collecting tax then states could collect taxes on companies that had a building or physical presence in the state now it seems to be many states tax all online sales. I don’t know if that’s in all fifty states. In the beginning it was to give this new tech a chance to grow when it was new but I’m not surprised it changed. There had been talk in Congress about adding a small federal tax on internet sales but when the government says “small tax” you know how it goes. I wouldn’t mind paying taxes so much if I knew every penny wasn’t being mismanaged and misspent. Sales tax is 6.5% in my state I believe I’ve seen no change in our state debt since they started doing this.

 

First, they tried to collect from users direct that did not work, now they are taking it from eBay and eBay is taking it during a check-out. People are moving to Instagram to buy and sell, the next wave is decentralized selling platforms so there no way to regulate it and crypto as a payment method with smart contracts aka escrow 2.0.

 

No sales tax on item I paid this AM
Individual and not a business. Guess that could be the diff

 

Depends on the state you live in.

 

Is it all states? If eBay has no presence in the state then I fail to see why they would need to charge sales tax.

 

It actually depends on the state law. As an example Florida does not mandate this tax.

 

I also just got a fee on a F&F payment to a fellow member in Canada of $4.99, i have never had a fee before for F&F regardless of country- this is all very troubling.

 

The sales tax collected is for the children............

 

Pugs

 

because just about every state has based a law to collect taxes on internet sales. Its nothing new, sales tax is real and has existed for a long time and it no longer matters that you have a physical presence.

 

It is not just the sales tax costs that Ebay is adding to your purchase cost. Ebay's Global Shipping Program uses contracted couriers rather than national postal services. This means that watches that are subject to import duty will have that duty calculated by the courier company and you have to pay it before they will deliver.
For example, I bought a watch a couple of months ago from a Japan Ebay vendor. He sent it DHL, which then applied an import duty (which I had never heard of) as well as the Australian GST. To rub salt into the wound, they also charged an administration fee to cover their cost of working out the import duty - another $83. It made a fairly reasonable purchase more expensive by $230.
At my request the same vendor has since sent me other watches via Japan Post's EMS system, which comes straight through our postal service with no GST, no import duty and no funny little 'admin' fees.
My advice is to stipulate to vendors that they must use their national postal service. If they insist on Ebay's Global Shipping, or want to use Fedex, DHL or similar courier, I tell them no sale. I just missed on a good purchase from the UK for exactly that reason - the vendor refused to use Royal Mail in favour of DHL, which meant that for a watch that had a purchase cost of $4400, I would have had to pay over $700 extra in tax and duty on arrival in Australia. No thanks.

 

sales tax and import duties are completely different. If you import an item you are obligated to pay any duty that is due...some shippers assist with this process, but just because some don't doesn't exempt you from the liability.

 

another reason to buy big ticket items elsewhere. especially if you live in a big tax state.

expect many more peeps to circumventing this this by pm'ing seller. and why wouldn't the seller sell off of ebay. they get hit with 10% fee which goes away as well.

-seller doesn't pay 10%
-buyer doesn't pay 10% tax
-negotiated price becomes lower because of it

ebay use to be the best price on things, now not so much. throw in state tax it's almost unusable on many levels.

 

I can also understand the seller not wanting to take on a risk sending $4400 item with regular mail to a first-time buyer.

 

To be fair, we can’t blame eBay. Amazon charges tax now too in states that require tax from internet sales.

 

Totally true, 10% fee + Paypal 3.5% makes the seller think twice before putting a high-value item for sale