New eBay Tax Warning (What does it mean?)

[BobC]

The OP noted this Ebay message was in regard to PA, right. This probably has to do with what is known as a Market Facilitator Law that some states had already put into effect to try and get more people to pay the "Use Tax" they owe on online purchases from out-of-state sellers. They figured if they couldn't force the online sellers to collect the sales tax they would at least make them put a message online to their users that if they lived in PA and purchased something online where they were not charged sales tax that the buyer had a legal responsibility to pay "Use Tax" to the state of PA. If the online retailer doesn't do this they could be subject to some actions/penalties. This was being done already prior to the recent Supreme Court ruling concerning South Dakota so if more states adopt the South Dakota law the need for this Market Facilitator statute may go the way of the dinosaurs.

And this was already brought up and discussed on here before. Look back at the thread DetroitBaseball showed a link to. Forget who it was but, someone brought up and talked specifically about being in PA and this exact law requiring sellers to put this reminder/warning about the liability for purchasers to pay PA Use Tax on their sites going forward. I don't know offhand what the penalty could be for a seller not complying, but it was done by the state to make sure people couldn't just say they didn't know. They figured if nothing else, there would be some honest people who probably had no idea about Use Tax before this who would go ahead and actually start paying it so they would not be going against the law.