Ebay Now Collects Sales Tax

I believe that under the Marketplace Fairness Act in the wake of Wayfair, it's the aggregate sales on the platform meeting the threshold that triggers state sales tax collection, not the sales of individual sellers. Same criteria applies to Amazon, Hipstamp, Delcampe, or any other online sales venue.

ebay was pestering me to submit my Sales Tax exemption forms, so I did. About once a year I'll find a collection on ebay that I'll buy for resale and I need to be sales tax exempt for that. I buy nearly all my shipping supplies on ebay and I guess I should be Sales Tax exempt for those but what about everything else I buy?

Will I get my razor blades or fishing equipment tax free too? That doesn't seem fair.

Being sales tax exempt as a buyer and how ebay handles that is a whole different animal from thresholds for state sales tax collection.

Without individualized tax-exempt categories/criteria, I don't know how that could be handled.

How does Amazon handle it?

To add to the chaos you have to remember auction houses who all have different sales tax policies too. It is really a mess.

For now, sellers using ebay Sync may not have to collect out of state sales tax on HipStamp. Some states may try to require show dealers below the Wayfair threshold to collect taxes for online sales.

I've been paying NY state sales tax for my ebay sales in NY. All my sales are through ebay. So if ebay is paying NY going forward do I still need to file with NY and just say zero taxable sales or what? Anyone know even who to ask? I want to keep my sales tax certificate so I'm not paying sales tax when I buy, but there will be no sales tax to report.

I found a place on the NY tax website to submit a question. We'll see what they come back with.

I had .80 cents tax on an order from Singapore. It doesn't seem right to me, not a big deal but I wonder how all that would work?

One, two, three, four, one, two
Let me tell you how it will be
There's one for you, nineteen for me
'Cause I'm the taxman, yeah, I'm the taxman
Should five per cent appear too small
Be thankful I don't take it all
'Cause I'm the taxman, yeah, I'm the taxman
If you drive a car, I'll tax the street
If you try to sit, I'll tax your seat
If you get too cold, I'll tax the heat
If you take a walk, I'll tax your feet
'Cause I'm the taxman, yeah, I'm the taxman
Don't ask me what I want it for
(Ah ah, Mr. Wilson)
If you don't want to pay some more
(Ah…

CA moved to a marketplace collection format a month or two ago. ebay regularly posts information about what they are doing in the sales tax area but you have to watch for it.

My understanding generally is that if you were already collecting sales tax in a state and ebay now collects for you, you only report on any sales you make and collect tax (i.e., if you sell through a different channel). Individual states may differ.

Right now I'm operating under the assumption that I owe NYS for Mar--May 2019 which was the portion of the NYS tax year which preceded ebay taking over collections. I will be very happy to send them their $41 and then I'm done!!

Here's the answer from NY state:

"Marketplace sellers who are registered for sales tax include the amount of taxable sales facilitated by a marketplace provider in their gross sales and nontaxable sales on the Questionnaire. They must report any taxable sales not facilitated by the provider broken down by jurisdiction on the main form or schedule."

So the implication is I still have to file every quarter even though I will never be paying them anything. Oh well. At least it will be easy.

Two answers:




If you have a sales tax number, you have to file. However, if you pay less than something like $100 a year in sales tax, you can opt to file yearly.





ebay recommends that you open a second account for which you pay sales tax.

Australia
My email today

The person asking this is listed as living in Arizona. So the 80 cents (presumably not 8/10 of a cent) will be split between the State of Arizona and your local government. Although part may be kept by ebay in exchange for collecting the tax for them.