eBay Tax Question:

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Rhotchkiss

This is a much more difficult question than a thread-response warrants, but I will try. As mentioned above, in America, sales tax is a state-level tax, usually levied on the sale of certain goods, paid by the buyer and collected by the seller, who then remits it to the state monthly/quarterly; use tax is the inverse, paid directly by buyer in cases where no sales tax was paid/collected- ignore it, rarely applies. In the US, as a general rule, no sale tax applies to cross-state transactions (this is where use tax theoretically applies, but again, ignore it); presumably the same rule applies to country to country sales.

Canada, whole different country, while different tax system, and I know zero about Canadian taxes. This could be a federal or province or local tax; it may only apply to certain goods or services; it may only apply when selling out of country. I have no clue. All I know is that seems like a very steep tax, so take advantage of the global health care and get your money's worth

That is exactly why I was asking the OP to confirm that he was being charged this on the fees he was paying as an Ebay seller. If that is case then it appears in Canada, at least where he is located, this provincial sales tax is charged on services he gets billed for, and Ebay is charged with billing and collecting it from him. As you and I pointed out, that is normally not the case here in the U.S. as the sales/use tax in most of all of the states is based on sales/purchases of tangible personal property, not fees for services such as this. Though there are some services that various individual states do charge sales tax on, like in Ohio we're I'm from there is sales tax charged on things like tanning or lawn care services. Ebay fees are not something to my knowledge that anyone here in the U.S. gets zapped with sales tax on, though some individual U.S. state might actually have it on their books, I'm not aware of it though. So the most likely answer to his question is no, we probably don't have what he has in Canada, specifically in whatever province he's living in.