Ebay Sales Tax on Everything Now?

[conor912]

Ahhh. This explains the mystery charge to my PP account. The other day I bought a PC for $7.75/dlvd. The charge showed as $7.75, but then there was a wierd separate mystery charge of $.78, which is WA sales tax (10.1%). I guess the party's over. Tax in HA, now tax on eBay...soon tax everywhere.

[BeanTown]

Didn't California propose charging tax on every text message? So, who collects the eBay tax and then is responsible for paying it? Please don't tell me the seller.

[keithsky]

So as a collector and not a business if I sell something in one of the state's you said do I collect the tax and then have to pay it on a tax form at tax time with my personal taxes? If so looks like I won't be selling anymore and most casual collectors won't either.

[PiratesWS1979]

Will the tax come from all sellers or just the ones over a certain dollar/item amount per year?

[egbeachley]

Originally Posted by keithsky

So as a collector and not a business if I sell something in one of the state's you said do I collect the tax and then have to pay it on a tax form at tax time with my personal taxes? If so looks like I won't be selling anymore and most casual collectors won't either.

No, your personal taxes are paid to your state. You would either send the cash to that state after filling out their form or, more likely, eBay would do it for you.

[steve B]

Originally Posted by egbeachley

No, your personal taxes are paid to your state. You would either send the cash to that state after filling out their form or, more likely, eBay would do it for you.

Except here in Mass you need to get a sales tax number from the revenue dept. Without it you don't have the right to collect sales tax. With it you do, but you also can file paperwork with a vendor to be exempt from sales tax on items for resale.


So will Ebay handle the paperwork of getting the tax number for me? And filing all the forms which have varying deadlines depending on overall sales?


Or do they collect and send me the tax, which I have no right to collect and essentially no way to pay to the state as there's no resale number to apply the payment to.


The first way pretty much wrecks Ebays claim to be "just a venue"
The second basically forces casual sellers to break state law.

[steve B]

Also, to be entirely correct, ours is a sales and use tax, so if I buy from another state, and Ebay forces me to pay their sales tax, then I'm technically required to pay my states use tax as well. (which has always been true, but I don't know anyone who actually pays that)

[egbeachley]

Originally Posted by steve B

Also, to be entirely correct, ours is a sales and use tax, so if I buy from another state, and Ebay forces me to pay their sales tax, then I'm technically required to pay my states use tax as well. (which has always been true, but I don't know anyone who actually pays that)

If you buy from another state they will charge you Sales tax based on your state and send the tax collected to your state. Hence you don’t need to pay Use tax as they already received it from the sale side of the transaction.

[perezfan]

Originally Posted by conor912

Ahhh. This explains the mystery charge to my PP account. The other day I bought a PC for $7.75/dlvd. The charge showed as $7.75, but then there was a wierd separate mystery charge of $.78, which is WA sales tax (10.1%). I guess the party's over. Tax in HA, now tax on eBay...soon tax everywhere.

Yup.... Etsy is now doing the same (in WA anyway). Not sure about other states, but pretty sure that many others will follow.