I live in New York and I get whacked 8.875% from sales tax on eBay.

That seems like something of a red herring. At least from my end. When I see a listing from another country, Canada or otherwise, it shows me the price in USD next to the price as listed. With the listed price in italics for emphasis. 

And I have never been charged an extra fee for currency conversion—what is that about?  
 

Gotcha. Here's the breakdown of it since you're referring to it all

(using my states sales tax and what it actually costs me to ship a CIB and cart only game)

$100 USD
- Cart Only:$13.50
- CIB: $23.50
+6.35% tax:
- cart only: $120.71
- CIB: $131.34

$120.71 USD to CAD = $159.53
$131.34 USD => $173.58

Plus the 2.5% PayPal conversion fee, so tack on another $3ish.

I do feel as though this is misleading, because the biggest factor here is the conversion rate of the CAD to USD. The USD is about 30% stronger than the CAD currently. The biggest fee here isn't the nominal $8 extra on a $120+ purchase (yea, it sucks that it's being enforced, but it's literally the least expensive thing here). The fees are fairly minimal here, tbh. The disparity comes from the strength of the USD vs the CAD currently.

Same issue with the CAD vs the Euro (except worse).

As for auctions, yes, they're taxed in most scenarios. Flea Markets are auctions (at least they're considered that in this state), and if you request a booth more than once or twice, they'll require you to have a sales and use permit (at least here). Which makes sense because a business (or entity) is renting out space, and hosting a market place where no taxes are reporting is illegal (aka, a black market).
 
Because that's not how taxes work? Aside from the glaring obvious reason on why that would never fly, taxes aren't based on the items "newness" or age, or if it's been purchased by someone else, but instead the value it's being sold for.

By this logic, zero sales tax should exist because each component in every product has been taxed down the line until it reaches you. Tax is how you keep the economic machine running. Some states (like New Hampshire) have no sales tax. "But if they can do it, everywhere else can!" Well no, not really. New Hampshire taxes the shit out of their property at the expense of no sales or income tax. Here's an interesting article on it: https://www.politifact.com/new-ha...

If you don't want to pay taxes on eBay, shop from sellers who live in Oregon, New Hampshire, Alaska, Delaware, and Montanna.

I asked a customer from Germany if they had any currency conversion fees, he said he didn't have any either. Paypal, however, does state there is a 2.5% currency conversion fee, so I'm not sure where, or how, it's applied.
 

It’s a transaction and as such is a function of society. Government needs a piece of that. There is not any real reason for the construct to consider condition just because we as individuals find it inconvenient. 

Think of real estate transfer. There’s no such thing as “new” vs “used” land. 

The rules are finally catching up to the market venue (internet) that has been undermining the old market venue (retail) for so long. 

They have been talking about this for like 15 years. State revenues have been declining.
I just hope the politicians will reverse course on austerity measures and restore some order to services that have been cut and cut and cut, and that citizens can be mature about it. Not that I'm holding out much hope.

When you purchase from anywhere, or when you buy from someone who lives in NY?

When I googled "highest sales tax", it listed California at 7.5%. Looking at NY's sales tax, the state tax is 4% but NY has this funny clause where it allows counties to add sales tax on top of it, so while 7.5% is technically correct, that doesn't account for unique situations such as NY's.

States allowing a local sales tax on top of state sales tax is pretty common.  (sometimes called a "local option")

It would surprise me if eBay was collecting local/county/city sales taxes on top of state sales taxes, but anything is possible, I guess.

I was going to use that in my example as well, but that's a completely different topic and a completely different set of rules. You can't just arbitrarily hand over a piece of property to someone and call it a day, which makes real estate a bad example (you need to get attorney's involved and so on - not that it's difficult, just not as cut and dry as handing over a video game).

And agreed on the last 2 points. The internet has been the best legal black market for the last 30 years and everyone has had more than enough warning this was coming.

For those that want to spite their face and cut their nose, cool story bro's. You're just gonna help your local economy better, so you're not really hurting anyone. Except maybe your pride or ego.

When I go into a deli to buy a beer they charge 8.875% sales tax.  When I buy anything on eBay these days I get charged an 8.875% sales tax.  I just assumed it was a New York State sales tax.

Does ebay whack you for sales tax from the buyer's location or the seller's?   I've gotten hit with it on transactions from Japan.
 

When I purchase form anywhere in NY or on eBay.  When I go into a deli to buy a beer they charge 8.875% sales tax.  When I buy anything on eBay these days I get charged an 8.875% sales tax.  I just assumed it was a New York State sales tax.

Good question. I haven't bought anything off eBay in a while, though my last online purchase was from a place that has a similar tax (Washington state) so I can't tell if the tax is from them (6.5%) or me (6.35%) as both result is the same rounded value since it was a small purchase.

But, according to tbone's response, it seems he's getting taxed on his location, so maybe that's what it is?

Good point. My first paragraph stands, however. Taxes apply to the transaction, not the object. As you also said, just because something was sold once, doesn’t mean it has been taxed for good going forward. If that were so, there would be no sales tax at the thrift store, used book store, used car lot, antique shops, etc.! 

(clarifying for other readers, not you— as we clearly agree. I just don’t want anybody to get distracted because my analogy about land sale is a bad one.)

The tax is collected for the State you live in.  I buy things from Japan and Canada and still get taxed from NY.  Well eBay takes the tax payment and remits it to New York.  I could just imagaine how much money NYS must be raking in now via eBay sales.  This is why I bet all States in the U.S. will follow suit soon except New Hampshire.

Only buyer location should matter.

 

Last I checked there are five states in the USA without a Sales Tax

Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire, and Oregon

Yeah, your first paragraph was fine   Just wanted to point out why real estate wasn't good for the example  
 
Gotcha! Okay, so that clears up some confusion on my end (I suppose I should've read the changes rather than assumed, whoops!)

But yeah, anyone "boycotting" this (what a silly ass thing to boycott) is just hurting themselves. The states are doing what they should've been doing from day 1. If that nominal tax is making it "not worth it", then the shipping was likely to kill the deal anyway. God forbid your state tries to generate revenue to support its residents with the services you benefit from and use daily.




 

The Canadian dollar might be worth 73 cents USD but if you get your money converted anywhere, they'll give you around 70 cents USD because they take a percentage for the conversion service. You actually cannot get the exact full value anywhere I'm aware of.

This is correct.  While it isn't shown as a listed fee per se, you do get nailed with a shittier conversion rate from Paypal.

You may do a little better paying with certain credit cards instead.   I know my one card had a better conversion rate than Paypal so I used to use that on international purchases.
 

Paypal gave me the option to have it converted there or to pay in USD and let the bank convert it. I did the latter, but forgot to write down the CAD amount that PP was offering so I couldn't compare. Paying with my Mastercard I paid about $6 in conversion fees for a $200 purcahse.

If an item is $300 USD with $10 USD shipping in the States it would be $300 USD + $20-25 USD shipping + $50-$55 USD import fees converted to CAD with an additional ~$10 fee for doing so at that amount.

So you guys would pay $310 USD where we'd be looking at a wrose case senario of about $380 USD converted + another $10 CAD charge for the conversion on that amount. So converting through Google $380 USD would be about $502 CAD and when you add the conversion fee around $512.

So someone purchasing in the US would pay the $310 USD
In Canada you'd be looking at about $510 CAD
The direct conversion of $310 USD to CAD using Google today is $410 CAD.

The GSP is still the killer because the import fees are high and you also have to convert them.

Adding sales tax would be an absolute killer for me in eastern Canada.... we pay 15% in my province. So taxing a $300 USD item ($400 CAD) would add an additional $60 CAD to the purcahse. I would be paying a grand total of $570 CAD for a $310 USD purcahse for someone in the States ($160 CAD in taxes and fees on a $300 USD item).

Stop calling the conversion rate a tax. It's not. You have the same problem if you're going to buy from Europe because the CAD isn't strong right now. That's literally where all of your "taxes" are really coming from, and it's not a tax.

It’s the 2-3% premium on conversion that is the issue. PayPal charges it, and the credit cards charge it, there is no good way around it, instead of them charging us the true rate, say 1.31, they charge us 1.35 (built right into the charge)

 

The better credit cards (i.e. Signature or Reserve types of cards) don't charge it and will give you the actual forex rates at time of exchange/purchase.

Other credit cards should also give you actual forex rates at the time of conversion, but then charge an explicit forex fee (typically on the order of 3%).


I don't think I've ever had a credit card play the "fee free" conversion rate game that cash exchanges are known for (where an at-least-5% fee is baked into the shitty exchange rate).

 

I understand there's a fee involved, but it's not a tax. If the CAD was more on par with the USD, I doubt anyone would really be complaining right now since the prices would only be nominally higher for CAD customers. Ya'll be bitching about the wrong thing  

 

I understand it's not a tax and I never called it that. The high shipping cost, local tax, and GSP have nothing to do with the conversion rate - I simply stated them in CAD. The only thing that the $160 CAD in taxes and fees has to do with conversion is the small premium the bank out PP charges to exchange currency. I'm not trying to paint a worse picture by putting it in CAD it just is what it is at the moment. In the early 2010s our dollar was at par but the shipping costs and GSP were still high... They just hurt a little more now s since the exchange rate sucks.