ebay and taxes

All kidding aside this post sucks , thats all we need more taxes & the gov. grabbing more . Geeezzzzzzz folks let well enough alone , so some folks make a little extra money who cares. MAAAAAANNNNN & you wonder why more & more business's are leaving this Country.

 

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I hate to tell you this, but they are doing a better job of spending than they are of collecting. That is why they are going broke.

 

True, but most of these are generally trivial compared to taxes. Taxes are, "by far", the easiest and most readily available lever an executive team can manipulate in a global economy... too often, that means going outside of the US to do business, even if the workers worked for free (no salary, no medical, nada), it's that significant....

 

I couldn't agree more.

It is ironic to see the pious Ebay cops that so staunchly defend Ebay rules seem to be a little fuzzy when it comes to paying taxes as required by law, violation of which actually is a crime.

I bet if you read the fine print of the Ebay rules, they somewhere state that sellers are responsible for paying taxes associated with Ebay sales.

O'my gosh, could the Ebay cops actually be violating Ebay rules? Perish the thought.

 

Easy answer...adopt the "Fair Tax"...let eBay add the tax to the Buyer's total then eBay pays the Government. We pay the tax, but don't have to hassle with the accounting.

Sellers don't pay a tax because "There IS NO Income Tax" (WooHoo!!) :hail:

 

And I believe they will be adding New York soon as well.

True but once Paypal reports how much you received in payments it gives the government auditors some place to start looking to see if you reported your earnings and paid taxes on them. "Let's see Paypal says you received $40K in payments last year. Where does that appear on your tax form?" Sure you can have expenses that offset that income, you just better have the records to prove it.

 

First off - sales tax is a state tax - not Federal tax - the US Government has no authority for collecting state taxes.

Second - sales taxes are owed and paid by the buyer not by the seller. The seller only collects the taxes on behalf of the state and holds the money in trust. A state does not have the authority to force individuals outside their boundries to collect taxes on their behalf.

Third - sales taxes are owed and paid by the buyer not the seller - if a seller who is outside your state's authority does not charge or collect sales tax does not exempt the buyer from the taxes.

 

I've lived in California for 55 years & I got to agree with you about the taxes & other issues draging this State down into the dumps , it sucks. Two of my three kids moved out several years ago because of this States issues & alough I miss them I agree wholeheartedly , this State taxes you unmercifully , but don't get me started. All I can say good folks is use California as an example of what you don't want your State to become, a messsssssssss.

 

there you go again, Big!

You're absoutely wrong again about eBay policy/internet sales & sales tax payments.

Geez, don't you know how to google something?

Also, didn't you say you we're gonna get off the subject of eBay and stick to discussing only coins on this forum?? :rolling:

 

eBay sales, PayPal payments & financial privacy issues

At this juncture, eBay & PayPal can't: voluntarily fork over sales info on specific eBay sellers to anyone; or fork over sales info on specific eBay sellers without the federal or state government 1) having an ongoing investigation into that specific seller, and 2) providing eBay with a subpeona which has a compelling basis.

That could change with the Big Brother adminstration now in power here in DC.

With their HQ in San Jose I don't know whether California could succeed in twisting eBay's arm since it's more a matter of tax reporting by sellers, not by eBay.

 

Internet Tax Freedom Act Amendments Act

http://pcworld.about.com/od/internetsalestax/US-House-approves-extension-to.htm

US House approves extension to 'Net tax ban

The U.S. House of Representatives has voted to extend an Internet tax moratorium for just four years, despite calls from the tech industry to permanently bar state and local governments from taxing Internet access. Grant Gross
Tue, 16 Oct 2007 23:00:00 UTC
The U.S. House of Representatives has voted to extend an Internet tax moratorium for just four years, despite calls from the tech industry to permanently bar state and local governments from taxing Internet access.
By a vote of 405-2, the House on Tuesday voted to pass the Internet Tax Freedom Act Amendments Act, which would extend the moratorium on Internet access taxes and other taxes unique to the Internet until November 2011. The current ban, extended twice since first Congress first enacted it in 1998, is set to expire Nov. 1.
One of the lawmakers voting against the temporary extension was Representative Anna Eshoo, a Democrat who represents part of Silicon Valley in California. Eshoo had pushed for a permanent ban.
"The moratorium has served us well and the Internet is now an integral part of everyday life," Eshoo said earlier this year. "It's more critical now than at any time since the moratorium was established to protect the Internet from new taxes and fees. The country that invented the Internet no longer leads the world in Internet access and use."
Similar legislation has stalled in the U.S. Senate. The Senate would have to pass a similar bill, and U.S. President George Bush would have to sign it, before the moratorium is extended.
The House bill also narrows the definition of Internet access, allowing state and local governments to tax Internet-related services such as VOIP (voice over Internet Protocol). Opponents of a permanent extension, including some lawmakers, have expressed concerns that the original tax moratorium could be interpreted to ban taxes on services such as VOIP.
State and local government groups are worried that a ban on VOIP would hurt their revenue.
The House bill also allows nine states that began taxing Internet access before 1998 to continue their taxes.
The United States Telecom Association, a trade group representing voice and broadband providers, praised the House for extending the tax moratorium.
"Every day, broadband technology is changing the way Americans live, from how they do business to how they learn and communicate to how they access medical treatment," Walter McCormick Jr., president and CEO of the group, said in a statement. "An Internet access tax penalizes that way of life. In essence, we're talking about a tax on economic opportunity, on knowledge, and on finding one's voice in the democratic process."
It is "imperative" that Congress doesn't allow the moratorium to expire, McCormick added.
But critics have said the deadline isn't as urgent as some tax moratorium supporters say it is. Before Congress last extended the moratorium in 2004, it had lapsed for about a year without new states taxing access.
The Washington Post, in an editorial Tuesday, said a four-year extension is adequate for an industry asking for "special treatment" compared to other taxed goods.
"The Internet is not in danger of being stifled by a few extra dollars tacked on to subscribers' monthly bills," the Post editorial said. "The rates of broadband availability and household subscription to Internet services are no lower in the nine states that have Internet taxes than in those that don't."

 

recent La Times article re: California & internet sales tax

latimes.com

12/24/09
MICHAEL HILTZIK

Internet sales tax scofflaws cheat state

Officials calculate that online shoppers who have failed to pay California's (100% legal) user tax owe the state more than $1 billion.

Michael Hiltzik
December 24, 2009

On this glorious day before Christmas, I have a message for all you sales tax scofflaws out there:

Pay up.

This means you. You, who bought your big-screen TV online from Amazon.com instead of at Best Buy and your fleece-lined parka from L.L. Bean instead of Eddie Bauer because Amazon and Bean don't charge you sales tax and the others do.

Guess what. You owe it anyway.

Skipping out on the sales tax due on online purchases is the single biggest category of “noncompliance” with California sales tax law, according to the state Board of Equalization, accounting for nearly 30% of all unpaid tax.

The board estimated lost revenue at $1.1 billion annually. To put that figure in perspective, it would pay the salaries of more than 15,000 California schoolteachers for a full year. And it may be conservative, given the explosion of Internet commerce in recent years.

Tax experts say there are two main reasons a huge volume of online sales don't get taxed. One is that most individual taxpayers aren't aware that it's owed. (If you've read this far, you no longer have that excuse. Sorry.)

The second is that the state makes almost no effort to enforce the law. The main reason is that it calculates that the average California household owed $47 last year in taxes on online purchases, which rules out a house-to-house search for untaxed goods. Tax authorities keep their eyes out for big-ticket out-of-state purchases like boats and cars, but other than that you're almost certain to skate unless you get audited for other reasons.

There's no question that ignorance of the sales tax rules has been, for millions of taxpayers, bliss. So let's get a few things straight.

First, in technical terms we're talking not about "sales tax" but "use tax." The former is collected by the seller of an item and remitted to the state. The latter is paid directly by the purchaser. But they're otherwise identical, so the terms are often used interchangeably.

Second, the use tax isn't new -- it was created in California in 1935 to deal with residents who slipped over the border to make purchases in states without sales taxes -- the '30s equivalent of funneling all your purchases through Amazon.com.

Finally, there's nothing illegal about it. Some people may think that online sales taxes run afoul of the 1998 federal Internet Tax Freedom Act, which forbids state taxation of Internet services -- your monthly access fee, for example.

But the act doesn't bar sales taxes on online purchases unless they discriminate against online commerce, as they would if they're imposed on goods or services that would be tax-free if bought from a neighborhood store.

The legal provision that is pertinent, however, is the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution, which has been held to prohibit any state from imposing a tax on an entity lacking a "nexus" in that state. In practice, a "nexus" means something like a bricks-and-mortar store or a sales office.

EddieBauer.com adds California sales tax to Californians' online purchases of its clothing because it has more than a dozen retail outlets in the state. L.L. Bean doesn't add sales tax because it has no operations in California.

Occasionally a merchant tries to pull a fast one. In the 1990s, Barnes & Noble tried to claim that its barnesandnoble

.com online retail site was completely separate from the B&N stores in every mall.

The state finally got B&N to concede in 2008 that the two sides of its coin were related. Today, bn.com charges sales tax on purchases from almost every state. In the meantime, the Legislature passed a measure stating that an online retailer was presumed to operate in the state if it also had retail locations in the state. It was vetoed by Gov. Gray Davis, who contended it would stifle the Internet's "full potential" and sully California's image as the "incubator of the dot-com community."

But Davis had his eye on the wrong ball. The real damage from the lack of Internet taxation was being done to local businesses forced to compete with online retailers operating with a built-in 7% or 8% price advantage. Indeed, it was a coalition of Northern California bookstores that got the state to go after Barnes & Noble.

Today the major resistor against online collection of sales tax is, unsurprisingly, Amazon.com, the world's largest online retailer. Amazon, which has no retail stores anywhere, has become a target of state tax collectors because as its business has expanded, so has the value of its inventory.

Once a purveyor of modestly priced books and videos, Amazon now offers big-ticket electronics and more. I found a men's titanium watch on its website priced at $92,000. Buy it at your local jeweler, and you'd pay about $7,400 in tax.

New York state mounted the most recent assault on Amazon's position, passing a law declaring in effect that Amazon's "associates" -- website operators who place an Amazon link on their pages and get paid a piece of any transaction that ensues -- constitute a nexus if they're located in New York.

Amazon's lawsuit challenging the law was tossed out by a state judge this year, but it's now under appeal. California is considering a similar law.

At least one of Amazon's claims is worth a horselaugh. This is that sales tax rules are so "horrendously complicated," with some 20,000 separate jurisdictions nationwide to track, that it's an "undue burden" to force Amazon to get it all right. (The words are from Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos at the company's annual meeting last year.)

This from a company that has no problem keeping track of the "millions of unique products" it sells. (These words are from its 2009 annual report.)

Nothing is stopping Amazon from creating a database encompassing every sales tax jurisdiction in the country, even leasing it out to other online merchants for a fee. It's fair to speculate that its real reason for resisting New York's initiative is to maintain its price advantage over the schnooks forced to collect sales tax online or at the cash register.

From a tax collector's standpoint, the important principle is that the only effective way to collect sales and use tax is to have the merchant do it. For the last few years California income tax returns have included a line inviting taxpayers to volunteer how much use tax they owe. Last year 44,000 taxpayers used the line -- out of 18.5 million filers in the state. They paid $9 million, or about three-quarters of one percent of what the state thinks it's owed.

So the next time you turn your attention to some person or class you believe is getting away with murder on state taxes, think about all those receipts in your drawers from online merchants reading $0.00 on the sales tax line.

And on Christmas Day, when the subject of who's been naughty or nice comes up, remember that in this one little particular most of us have been naughty.

Michael Hiltzik's column appears Mondays and Thursdays. Reach him at michael.hiltzik@latimes.com, read previous columns at www.latimes.com/hiltzik, and follow @latimeshiltzik on Twitter.



Copyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times

 

9/09 Daily Finance article re: eBay & sales tax

EBay: Internet sales tax hurts businesses

TOM BARLOW Posted 5:30 PM 09/08/09

Internet sales tax is a hot button in many state legislatures that are attempting to find ways to balance recession-depleted budgets by raking in the sales tax revenue. At the center of this is eBay (EBAY), which reported $8.5 billion sales in 2008 and served as the marketplace for almost $60 billion in transactions.

I spoke with eBay's Brian Bieron, Senior Director, Federal Government Relations and Global Public Policy, about the company's position on the subject.


DailyFinance: How compliant are your customers currently with state sales tax collection and payment?Brian Bieron: EBay does not collect, maintain or otherwise compile data regarding the state and local sales tax collection practices of sellers on eBay. The overwhelming majority of sellers on eBay are entrepreneurial individuals and small retailers who use the Internet, each with a unique business or business model. In most cases a seller and buyer on eBay are not located in the same state and therefore under current federal tax laws the small business seller is not obligated to undertake tax collection responsibilities for the thousands of out-of-state government entities.

If you don't know, could you know if you wanted to, by querying your databases?No. EBay is a marketplace that brings buyers and sellers together through the Internet, not a retailer. The tax responsibilities of the individuals and small business retailers who use eBay are not something that eBay is in position to monitor. We do know that in most cases where buyers and sellers come together on eBay that they are not located in the same state.

If all states were to agree on a uniform tax rate and provide a single clearinghouse for merchants to pay state sales taxes, as proposed by the Streamlined Sales Tax Governing Board, would eBay support or oppose legislation to make collecting state taxes mandatory for online merchants?To be clear, the Streamlined Sales Tax Governing Board does not propose establishing a uniform sales tax rate among the states, nor does it even require a single sales tax rate within each state. Instead, the Internet sales tax regime envisioned by the SSTP would be a very complex set of rules and rates, with many thousands of state and local tax jurisdictions across the country. Furthermore, the rules are regularly modified and changed by the "governing board". Requiring small business retailers to collect and remit taxes based on thousands of different jurisdictions, keep the detailed records for every different transaction and tax jurisdiction for years, and be subject to audits by each state, is a long-term negative for small business retailers trying to use the Internet.

If the states were to ever come to Congress with a proposal where "all states were to agree on a uniform tax rate," eBay and eBay sellers would carefully review that proposal. But make no mistake, that is nothing like the complex and ever-changing Internet sales tax proposal being promoted by some states and giant retailers.

How do you answer the criticism that brick and mortar stores are not being treated fairly when forced to compete with Internet-based companies that collect and pay no sales tax?
A critical fact in the decade-old Internet sales tax debate is that the Internet is increasingly a part of every successful retail model. Most U.S. retailers, from the largest to the smallest, include the Internet in how they do business. The largest retailers in America, mega-retailers doing tens and even hundreds of billions in sales like Wal-Mart (WMT), Target (TGT), JC Penny (JCP) and Best Buy (BBY), are also some of the largest retailers on the Internet. They are combining the Internet with massive store networks to provide a new consumer experience to their customers, a business model increasingly referred to as "Brick & Click." Likewise, many of the smallest retailers in America, the small "Main Street" retailers who have been under siege in a business sense by the billion dollar mega-retailers for decades, have realized that the Internet is also a component of their 21st Century business strategy. Many are using eBay and other ecommerce enablers, such as paid search businesses, to reach new customers. Quite simply, in the retail space, the Internet is increasingly a part of everyone's business strategy, and for each business, it will play a part in long term success.

The rhetoric of sales taxes pitting Internet retailers against "Brick & Mortar" retailers is a vestige of the past, and is largely politically-inspired fiction. All of the biggest retailers and many of the smallest retailers have a store presence and an Internet presence. The real tax policy debate is about the appropriate level of burdens on mega-retailers and their small business competitors. The reality is that an increasingly large share of Internet retail already involves sales tax collection because the massive "Brick & Click" retailers have physical presence in nearly all states through their stores, and they collect taxes on their growing online sales because they offer consumers services such as in-store returns and product pick-up. The current Internet sales tax proposal is really aimed at placing the same tax collection burdens on the small business retailers. Treating a small business with a couple of dozen employees and possibly a part-time accountant and tax advisor the same as a multi-billion dollar business with thousands of employees and entire tax and accounting departments is not "fairness" and will not "level the playing field" in any way. It will unlevel the playing field in a way that harms small business retailers that are trying to compete online with mega-retail businesses.

What legislation, if any, currently under consideration in Washington do you think would best match your company's position on Internet sales tax?EBay has consistently called for any proposal to change federal law related to sales tax collection and remittance to protect small business retailers. The Internet can empower small entrepreneurs, create new small businesses, create new jobs, and deliver new and better products and services to consumers across America. Creating a new tax collection burden for small retailers on the Internet will harm small business and make it harder to compete with the largest mega-retail corporations. Therefore, eBay has supported including a robust small business exemption, in any Internet sales tax legislation, so that small retailers are not harmed or undermined by any change. In terms of federal legislation, S. 2153 from the 109th Congress, a bill sponsored by Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, included a "Small Business Exemption" provision that would have empowered the US Small Business Administration to determine which small business retailers would be exempt from the new Internet sales tax regime. EBay has stated its support for that small business protection proposal as an appropriate way to protect and promote small business development and job creation as part of a new Internet sales tax regime.

 

Abudanza! 4/09 BusinessWeek article re: internet/ Ebay & sales tax

The State of the Internet Sales Tax

Posted by: Olga Kharif on April 20
Companies like online retailer Amazon.com, iTunes service provider Apple and software maker Microsoft have been fighting Internet taxes for years. Back in 1992, the Supreme Court ruled in Quill vs. North Dakota that states can’t make companies with no physical presence in their states collect those states’ sales taxes. That means that Amazon.com may only be required to collect sales taxes in states like Washington State, where it has facilities, and not in others. Well, there’s an effort under way to change that.
In the next week, legislators are expected to introduce bills in the House and Senate promising to do away with the “physical presence” requirement. If a bill passes — and that’s a big “if” — it would require all online retailers, except for the tiniest companies, to collect sales taxes in the 23 states that are part of the Streamlined Sales Tax Project. The states would compensate the retailers for the trouble, while promising not to sue them for tax collection mistakes that are made.
Folks from the National Conference of State Legislatures that’s helping Congress draft this bill believe it could pass this year. But analyst Blair Levin from Stifel Nicolaus, a firm that’s extremely plugged into Washington politics, is not so sure. “We are skeptical that this Congress will enact legislation to facilitate state (and possibly local) taxation of online sales, though the effort appears to have a somewhat better chance than in prior Congresses,” he wrote in an April 20 report. While states’ financial difficulties and the Democratic majority in Congress should help NCSL’s cause, “we note continuing resistance, particularly among Republicans but also among Democrats, to taking actions that can be seen as raising taxes, particularly during a recession.” What’s more, Levin notes, “we believe a number of lawmakers in both parties will be reluctant to support a measure that would hamper high-tech growth.”
Interestingly, Neal Osten, federal affairs counsel at NCSL, says that Amazon.com actually supports his organization’s cause. He points out that 1,100 online retailers already voluntarily collect sales taxes outside of their physical borders. “Amazon’s biggest concern is that the system is different from state to state,” he says. I’ve left Amazon.com a message but haven’t heard back yet.
But here's a company that vehemently opposes NCSL's proposals: eBay. The auction giant is trying to protect the interests of its sellers, who may be forced to take on the extra expense and hassle of collecting sales taxes.
Whether the federal bill passes remains to be seen, but what's clear is that, as states try to plug holes in their budgets, more and more of them will be re-evaluating whether to charge an Internet tax. Osten says that Florida, Texas, Illinois, Massachusetts, Connecticut, California and Hawaii are considering joining the NCSL push. Were all 50 states to collect these sales taxes, they'd collect an extra $7.5 billion each year, Osten says.
That said, efforts in several states have fizzled. New York's governor, for instance, has recently tried to tax iPod downloads, such as music and movies. The provision didn't make it into the state's final budget, approved two weeks ago. In Minnesota, a bill designed to tax digital content such as music and ringtones was, in early April, introduced in the House, but it appears to be stuck in the Senate. "There's clear opposition from the IT industry," says Minnesota Rep. Jim Davnie. "Apple, Microsoft have been in my office."
Eventually, Davnie says, all Web sales have got to be taxed in the same way as those at brick-and-mortar retail stores. After all, past regilation had held off on imposing the tax for fear of crushing the fragile Internet economy that was, back then, still very much in the start-up mode. Now, "it's no longer this fragile baby you are afraid to get crushed," Davnie says.
Now, it's the might of the online tech giants could hamper the bills' progress. After all, they've gotten so much might, they might be able to effectively block all federal sales tax moves.

 

there you go again, Big!
Quote:
Originally Posted by majorbigtime
I couldn't agree more.

It is ironic to see the pious Ebay cops that so staunchly defend Ebay rules seem to be a little fuzzy when it comes to paying taxes as required by law, violation of which actually is a crime.

I bet if you read the fine print of the Ebay rules, they somewhere state that sellers are responsible for paying taxes associated with Ebay sales.

O'my gosh, could the Ebay cops actually be violating Ebay rules? Perish the thought.

You're absoutely wrong again about eBay policy/internet sales & sales tax payments.

Geez, don't you know how to google something?

Also, didn't you say you we're gonna get off the subject of eBay and stick to discussing only coins on this forum?? :rolling:
Last edited by Bartelmoose; Today at 03:14 PM. Reason: try & guess


Hey Moose--check this out (directly from the Ebay website):

"Sellers are legally obligated to pay relevant fees and taxes on their eBay sales."

Betcha 'ya broke the rules, which you interpret as a crime. Hey, tax evasion is a crime--just ask Al Capone!

Whatcha gonna do when they come for you!

 

So, Big...

...you gonna pony up: the sales tax on that "eBay Rip??" coin you got from your side deal; and the eBay fees that weren't paid in your conspiracy with the crooked eBay seller??

 

Try reading again, Moose..... "Sellers are legally obligated to pay relevant fees and taxes on their eBay sales."

Unlike you, I am not an Ebay seller. Tax collection and payment, where applicable, are the seller's responsibility.

At least you now express the opinion that the seller was the alleged "crooked" person in my transaction. Are you also now ready to admit that you are not "pristine" and may actually have violated the "sacred" Ebay rules? If so, does that also make you a crook?

 

Just give the records to the CPA and let him/her take care of it. A lesson learned the hard way, not because the IRS or state DRS ever contacted me, but because of the fear of their doing so--it isn't worth the little bit of money saved, and if you work in all your deductions and allowances through a CPA on a monthly basis, you will save in peace of mind 10X anything you would otherwise gain.

ICTA is a good organization to join and get the information you need from them to be on the safe side, especially on international sales--for example, the guy in the Caymans who has a number of Engelhard bars he needs to sell, and he trusts you because you have a great reputation in the industry--right!

Dan Pilla, Jr.--http://taxhelponline.com/ has helped thousands of people with their tax issues, but pretty much any energetic CPA is competant in doing so.

 

Did you ever hear of aiding and abetting?

 

Yeah, as in you and Moose!