So,

I sold something to someone in Washington a few weeks ago and noticed when I printed out the invoice that they were charged sales tax which was collected by Ebay.

I did some searching and apparently some states passed laws forcing Ebay to collect tax in 2019:
https://www.ebay.com/help/selling...

I bought something last night - and now it's happening to me even though my state is not on that list.


So now everything I buy on Ebay is 8% more expensive. Bah!
(This wll be less or more for you depending on where you live. I am in NY)

I get it, we need taxes. It's a sale, it should be taxed, but an 8% increase is huge and is going to make me more interested in buying on NA/CL/FB/Etc



 

I've only bought a few things from members here but it has all been very easy and much cheaper than eBay. I'll probably just end up cancelling my eBay account and buy from here and my local game shops.

Very interesting post and thanks for the information!

I thought that was coming. LRG startes a litted while ago. I know this is on the state level, but I think congress has been pushing this because they believe online sales have an unfair advantage over brick and mortar sales and companys are getting away with not paying their fair share.

It stings for sure. Especially if you buy really expensive stuff.

Reading the FAQ, it's the seller's responsibility to charge and report sales tax. I suspect most smaller sellers won't. People cleaning out the attic etc. I would guess it will only be people selling regularly and making a decent income from eBay that will list the taxes.

That's how it used to be. When I sold to that guy in Washington I didn't have sales tax collection on - Ebay did it automatically without my knowledge.

The thing I bought yesterday was from a guy in Wisconsin with 20 feedback.

Ebay is being forced by the states to do it themselves and are removing it from the seller's responsibilty. 
 

Oh, wow! That will change things then. I stand corrected.

 

You don't get the automatic 1099-K unless you have 20K in sales and over 200 transactions in a calendar year. Paypal has had that limit set in place as well for at least the last several years so that part is not new. Having sold and bought a few things this year on eBay, I don't recall ever seeing a sales tax on either end of my side when dealing with buyers/sellers in those various states. I'll be keeping an eye on it in the future though.

Have no problem paying taxes on a new product. But paying taxes on a used item that already has taxes paid when when sold as new sucks

So is there now no pressure as a seller to collect sales tax since its built into the system now? It was always kind of dicey

When you unknowingly describe the entire United States tax code lol

 

As far as I'm aware, but I know even less about foreign tax codes, the US is the sole nation on Earth that allows state and local goverments to apply additional tax at the point-of-sale for general goods.

Most countries with a sales tax mandate that it's uniform nationally.

AFAIK, sellers still have to report sales tax. The taxes that you're being charged with, IIRC, are from the state the buyer is from.


AFAIK, it still is and this change is because each state a seller sells to is also supposed to pay sales tax in that state, or some such. Since it would be impossible to go after every seller for every sale in every state, they're putting that burden on the host -- in this case eBay, but I believe Amazon also does the same thing.

I could be 100% wrong, but that's what was explained to me by someone earlier this year.

Based on a quick reading here:

https://www.ebay.com/help/selling...

If your state IS NOT listed it's still up to the seller to collect taxes. If your state IS LISTED eBay is adding the tax to the transaction regardless of anything the seller does. Your address is defined as where the item is shipping too.

Based on Tengen's location in his avatar as NY, the seller themselves added the taxes on to responsibly report earning to the government. NY is not listed on the states that eBay themselves apply taxes too.

Not a tax attorney, so as Dra600n pointed out, I could also be 100% wrong.

I don't think that list is up to date. I had never been charged sales tax on Ebay until June 1st hit. Now every single item I try to buy has tax added on. The sellers aren't selecting any kind of option, this is Ebay doing it because the states told them to.

As an experiment, I just hit buy it now on 4 different items (you can see if tax is added before actually paying) All 4 had tax, including items from New Hampshire, which has no sales tax.

I'm guessing this policy is being rolled out incrementally, do you see tax if you hit buy it now on something?
 

Just tried, didn’t hit me with sales tax - I’m in MD. Your experiment is interesting though, the stuff you tested were they from high volume sellers? It wouldn’t surprise me at all if eBay was accidentally charging you tax.
 

It was a mix. Just did a further experiment - it happens with a 0 feedback new user from Cali and even sellers from Canada!



 

Damn dude - I’d open a ticket with eBay support and see what the deal is. 

 

...
 

No need to do that, I found an article about it:

https://nypost.com/2019/04/04/online-shoppers-will-soon-have...

It's projected to bring in 280 mil of new taxes, which means every other state that has sales tax will follow suit soon. Sigh.
 

$280 mill seems low just thinking of the sheer amount of people in NYC alone. Super bummer for you though,
Glad I moved out of NY and to MD a few years ago. No school taxes either!

...

If I want something I'm still going to buy it I'll just factor in taxes when I'm looking for the best deal.

Yea, the first time it happened to me was on a $600 purchase. That was fun.

But hey, if you live in America, you pay sales tax. That's the rules. Be happy we got away with it for so long in the first place.

This is BS!