State Taxes Deductibility

[D. Bergin]

Heritage collecting Sales Tax is likely something they would rather not have to do. It's a money losing proposition. Likely cost them plenty on the accounting end, and any fees that any merchant processing company deducts from that portion of sales, is a direct loss, since you can't charge somebody a collection fee on top of the sales tax collection.

Unless (to get on my own soapbox ), you are Ebay, and you've figured out how to charge what's essentially a "Sellers Fee", on the entire sale, including Shipping and any collected Sales Tax. The higher a states sales tax rates are, the more money Ebay collects for itself, for that transaction.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by D. Bergin

Heritage collecting Sales Tax is likely something they would rather not have to do. It's a money losing proposition. Likely cost them plenty on the accounting end, and any fees that any merchant processing company deducts from that portion of sales, is a direct loss, since you can't charge somebody a collection fee on top of the sales tax collection.

Unless (to get on my own soapbox ), you are Ebay, and you've figured out how to charge what's essentially a "Sellers Fee", on the entire sale, including Shipping and any collected Sales Tax. The higher a states sales tax rates are, the more money Ebay collects for itself, for that transaction.

It is technically not a loss, but a cost of doing business, just like paying the rent or an employee's salary. But you are correct in that probably no business wants the hassle of dealing with sales taxes if they had a choice. But they don't, and collecting and remitting sales taxes is a requirement they must perform in return for the right to operate and do business in various states.

And as for Ebay charging a fee to sellers for sales tax collected on their behalf, I'm sure they view that as a way to charge and recoup the costs the sellers would otherwise directly incur if Ebay wasn't doing this sales tax collection and remittance for them.

There is no specific law or rule anywhere that I'm aware of that would prohibit any auction house from also charging sellers, and even the buyers, a commission/fee on any sales tax collected as part of the auction as well. It's just that there is a lot of competition among AHs, and the first AH to do something like that would get negative publicity and likely lose some bidders and consignors. Ebay doesn't have anywhere near the volume or level of competition that AHs do, and can easily ignore everyone else and pretty much just do what they want.