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I accepted an offer on a key fob and after he paid for it, I got this message:
Yikes!..pinch, pinch, pinch…It didn’t say that you added taxes to your items. Wow! I didn’t know it would add up to so mftuch; I wish you had told me. It is a gift for a friend looking to complete the rest of the collection she had purchased awhile back and could not find—so I just had to get it.
I do appreciate the discount. But can you please let customers know about taxes with a note by the item? Thanks.
I did reply that eBay automatically charged sales tax on any item going to any state that had a sales tax requirement. I tried to make it sound like it wasn’t “me”, it was “them”. Haha.
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Not all buyers may be aware that the tax laws have changed. It is kind of a rude awakening if you buy online partly to get out of having to pay state tax.
At the end of my listings, I have a few sentences saying to contact me with any issues, we are non-smoking, but have cats, etc. I also write that I collect taxes for NJ residents. Because of the new state tax laws, I’ve been taking that out.
I don’t collect NJ taxes any more; eBay does. They also collect taxes for several other states, and I have nothing to do with it. So, I think you explained it properly. We don’t collect taxes anymore. We are out of that business.
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I think there’s going to be a short period where online taxes surprise people and then it’ll be normal. I’m pretty sure eBay shows the final amount you’ll pay before you actual purchase.
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I thought you had that 1776 thing to get away from paying taxes! 🙂
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Our Founding Fathers were opposed to “taxation without representation”, but they should see it WITH representation! Argh!
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Sounds like you handled it correctly. Ebay is collecting sales tax now for more and more states. It’s out of our hands. It will probably take awhile before customers realize this. The days of avoiding sales tax on the internet are quickly coming to an end, sadly.
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I have always collected taxes for Missouri residents and have my tax ID information entered on both eBay and Amazon. Missouri is not one of the states with an economic nexus law (yet) so neither eBay or Amazon are collecting sales tax for that reason, however, Amazon does collect Missouri sales tax based on having a physical nexus due to their fulfillment warehouse in the state. But, they do not collect MO sales tax on my listings to MO customers which tells me that having my MO tax id on record overrides the required tax collection by Amazon.
I wonder if eBay is the same for states with economic nexus laws, if a seller has a tax id for that state does that override eBay collecting and remitting the tax?
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Apologies in advance if this issue has been addressed – I am pressed for time and can’t read everything that might deal with this. An FYI of sorts – I have a tax ID and have always collected, filed and submitted Sales Tax to the State of Massachusetts because that is where my business is based. I called EBay Customer Service because I noticed a buyer from MA was not charged Sales Tax and wondered if my settings got messed up. They said MA was one of the States they collected for and I did not need to worry about it but after Nov 1st, PayPal will take over that service. I asked what if you are on Managed Payments and they didn’t have an answer for me….
The Rep did however ask if I wanted to opt into Managed Payments but I would never ever until they have Global Shipping Program and PayPal. I happen to have a package that shipped to Australia through GSP that opened a “Not Delivered” case but it is not my problem thank goodness!
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A few weeks ago I had a customer who thought I was trying to make up for the discount I offered her by collecting sales tax from her. She was very upset about it.
I explained that many states are now requiring sales tax be collected on internet sales. She said that she had never paid internet sales tax before and I countered that most likely her state had just recently adopted internet sales tax collection. I asked if she had purchased anything else on the internet that day and NOT paid sales tax. Even when I explained that eBay collected and remitted the sales tax, not the seller, and told her that the seller never sees the sales tax money she believed that I was just using “sales tax” as a way to get more money out of her for my item. She cancelled the sale.
I’m probably lucky she cancelled though, she seemed like a very hard to please buyer.
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This may be an example for the Silent Treatment after initial response that Jay and Ryanne were discussing in this week’s podcast. I know I have experienced the situation where the more I say the more upset the buyer seems to get and have pretty much stopped engaging.
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Most of us can probably see these buyers from a mile away. Their complaints are complicated and intense. It usually has little to do about the actual item. Just provide a link to eBay info and/or a choice they must make. Everthing else is drama.
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All you can do is tell the truth to the buyer and move on. Yep they did you a favor by cancelling.
I can kind of understand the buyers complaint, because I have experience with a seller who tried to charge me sales tax on an $800 ebay purchase several years back. I messaged them and informed them they cannot charge me state sales tax unless they were registered in my state and that I’d like to have their Tax ID so I could confirm it. The PROMPTLY removed the tax and claimed it was an error. Collecting state sales tax and not remitting while conducting interstate commerce is a federal crime not to be taken lightly.
I bet that seller was collecting sales tax on every sale and pocketing it.
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I refunded a buyer and they complained that I was keeping the sales tax from them. Shouldn’t eBay be doing that automatically? I told them to call support and haven’t heard back.
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Apparently the internet sales tax being collected by eBay for a number of states that began on October 1st is taking more than one of my customers by surprise. I just got this message from a buyer who purchased a sewing pattern from me (which I’ve already shipped).
“I am terribly sorry! I filed a resolution with PayPay when I saw an extra charge attached to this purchase of $16.13. It turns out it was sales tax. I am trying to cancel the complaint with PayPal. I had panicked when ebay told me my account had been illegally accessed. My sincere apologies.”
EBay told her her account had been illegally accessed, when the issue she was asking about was the sales tax that eBay was collecting! What terrible customer service on eBay’s part.
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