Odds & Ends Frank Ross on 15 Mar 2007 04:44 pm
Creepy eBay Buyer Questions and Taxes
One buyer asked a odd 2 part question (1) he wanted to know if he could pick the item up and (2) he wanted our state license number.
The 2nd part was clearly none of his business especially considering that eBay doesn’t even require sellers to have a business licsense (both a blessing a curse in my opinion). Of course one does not say “None of your business” so I elegantly avoided the 2nd part of the question by answering just the first - that we are not set up for local pickup.
Then he replied and the reason for his question became obvious. He rephrased his question to ask if we were indeed required to charge sales tax for buyers in our state. Without explaining the implications of a licensed business NOT charging sales tax on eBay for resale goods, I just said yes we are required to charge sales tax.
I believe he might have been checking to make sure we were really a business. For actual businesses, we charge the customer sales tax and then we pay the state back for the sales tax we collected via our quarterly B & O tax filings. Perhaps there are eBay sellers who are not actual businesses charging sales tax and then pocketing it? Hmm.
Sales tax is the reason that we get relatively few eBay buyers in our state (our local sales tax rate is 8.8%). It’s going to be interesting to see what happens on eBay when internet sales tax is implemented!