Quote:
Originally Posted by BobC
And here's where it can start to get sticky. What if over time you/your business make some Ebay purchases that are sales tax exempt and some that are not. I'm not exactly sure how Ebay will be able to discern between which purchases are or aren't subject to sales tax then. And if a state ever goes back to Ebay to review and audit the sales taxes they are and are not collecting, Ebay will likely turn over their file of any and all sales tax exemption forms they've received for people/businesses. And that helps to show Ebay has no liability for having not collected sales tax from those people/businesses that gave them sales tax exemption certificates. But it also then gives the state a listing of people/businesses to possibly further investigate to see if they are truly sales tax exempt or merely trying to get out of paying sales tax.
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You're right that I don't see a way for a buyer to convey to eBay which purchases fall into which category. In these cases, one would presumably still have to remit the applicable tax to their state as before. Or would have to establish a separate eBay account for such non-for-resale purchases (probably not a bad idea anyway). This would still be preferable to the previous situation though of eBay not having any way for resellers to avoid eating the sales tax on ALL purchases, regardless of whether intended for resale or personal use.