Sales Tax not being calculated correctly by PayPal for eBay sales

[spiked]

My state (NC) has gone to 'destination' sales tax calculation, so I set up the sales tax calculations in my selling profile as follows. The default rate in NC is 6.75%, so I set the "North Carolina" state rate to 6.75%. For the counties that charge other than 6.75%, I then added entries for each Zip Code in that county at the appropriate rates (some 7%, some 7.25%). As I understand it, on any purchase, PayPal should look in this table, and if the Zip Code is present, then apply the specified rate. Otherwise it should check to see if the state is NC, and if so, apply the NC state rate.

I just had a sale for a NC county with a 7% sales tax rate. PayPal calculated the sales tax at a 12.125% rate.I double checked and I have the correct Zip Code entry in the table, set to 7%. I had to refund the difference to the customer, which of course makes them wonder what I'm up to (I explained PayPal is calculating it incorrectly).

Verifying every in-state sale's sales tax calculation and refunding if necessary will be a real pain in the neck.

I've notified PayPal of the problem by email and haven't heard back yet.

Anybody else experiencing this problem?

[spiked]

For reference, here's a link to a file with my current sales tax datafill as output by PayPal in "My Profile/My Selling Tools/Selling online/Sales Tax":

http://bearinlet.com/fns/EB/MySalesTaxFill.txt

[spiked]

Correction: PayPal applied a 8.25% (NOT 12.125%) sales tax rate when it should have been 7% per my data fill by zip code.

I just had another in-state sale today - should have been 6.75% (my state-wide default), but PayPal applied 8.25%.

They appear to be applying 8.25% regardless, ignoring all my sales tax datafill. Where they get 8.25% as the rate to apply, I have no idea...

I can't believe I'm the only one this is happening to?

[spiked]

Well, it's been a week and I've received no response to my email to PayPal regarding this problem, other than the original acknowledgement of its receipt. So much for a response within 24 hours... Do they just pitch problem reports into the virtual waste bin?

[spiked]

I finally called PP Merchant support and they confirmed sales tax should be applied as I expected using my tables in PP, assuming it had not already been applied before the transaction was handed over to PP from eBay.

Which triggered a recollection that originally I was applying sales tax (before my state switched to 'destination taxing') using a fixed rate (ie, my locality's rate) on the eBay side. I went to my eBay preferences and unchecked the 'apply sales tax' setting for my state. Hopefully this will leave it unapplied in eBay, so PayPal can do the application using my datafill there.

The moral is: don't neglect to turn off any flat rate sales tax application you may have in effect on the eBay side, when you switch over to applying 'destination sales tax' on the PayPal side.