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Ina Steiner is co-founder and Editor of EcommerceBytes and has been reporting on ecommerce since 1999. She's a widely cited authority on marketplace selling and is author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). Her blog was featured in the book, "Blogging Heroes" (Wiley 2008). She is a member of the Online News Association (Sep 2005 - present) and Investigative Reporters and Editors (Mar 2006 - present). Follow her on Twitter at @ecommercebytes and send news tips to ina@ecommercebytes.com. See disclosure at EcommerceBytes.com/disclosure/.
Why is eBay collecting state sales taxes on items purchased from Canada?
It’s not sales tax, it’s use tax. I got hit with the same thing when buying from a foreign country.
From the invoice: Sales tax (eBay collected)
I paid taxes on a purchase from Malaysia. Everyone’s in on the act.
@Hogwart
It’s usually grouped like this: “Sales and Use Tax”, so either term could be applicable, Sales Tax or Use Tax. Some people escape the state Sales Tax by crossing into a Non Sales Tax state to make a major purchase. When you bring the item back, you are subject to the Use tax in your state. It’s just a big catch-all. Probably works the same for countries, although the term I see most of the time is VAT, Value Added Tax. No clue how they define that, but I’m sure someone got creative.