Reporting of sales tax charged by eBay is combined with item price, shipping, etc.

[RusticSandy]

I don’t sell on eBay.  I am strictly a buyer, using only PayPal.

When I downloaded my 2019 PayPal Transactions to determine if I owed Minnesota Use Tax, I was shocked to see how the taxes I paid on eBay purchases are being reported.

Up until November 2, 2019, PayPal had a separate row for sales tax paid on all eBay purchases.  Just the tax amount on one row, with the description of “Sales Tax (1)” or “Tax collected by partner”.  It did not even associate the tax with the purchased product it applied to. The row below, I found out, is the purchase price and item description for which that tax applied to.

After November 2, 2019, PayPal’s reporting now just shows one total amount, which includes item price, shipping, discounts, and sales tax charged, all combined into one amount.

So now I have to go to each item in my Purchase History at eBay and manually enter the tax I paid for purchases I made after 11/2/19 on the spreadsheet.

While I was doing that, I added a formula to calculate what the tax rate was that I was charged.  Where I live the tax rate should be 7.375%.  What I was actually charged is close, but every tax charge is at a different rate.  I know that is not PP's problem, but eBay should fix that.

This is going to take forever to get straightened out.  Very frustrating!

Ebay does not have an option to download my purchase history, so I must rely on PayPal for the information.

I would like to know why PayPal is combining all of the charges (price of item, discount, shipping and sales tax paid) in one total amount!

[RusticSandy]

When I downloaded my 2019 PayPal Transactions to determine if I owed Minnesota Use Tax, I was shocked to see how the taxes I paid on eBay purchases are being reported.

Up until November 2, 2019, PayPal had a separate row for sales tax paid on all eBay purchases.  Just the tax amount on one row, with the description of “Sales Tax (1)” or “Tax collected by partner”.  It did not even associate the tax with the purchased product it applied to. The row below, I found out, is the purchase price and item description for which that tax applied to.

After November 2, 2019, PayPal’s reporting now just shows one total amount, which includes item price, shipping, discounts, and sales tax charged, all combined into one amount.

So now I have to go to each item in my Purchase History at eBay and manually enter the tax I paid for purchases I made after 11/2/19 on the spreadsheet.

While I was doing that, I added a formula to calculate what the tax rate was that I was charged.  Where I live the tax rate should be 7.375%.  What I was actually charged is close, but every tax charge is at a different rate.  I know that is not PP's problem, but eBay should fix that.

This is going to take forever to get straightened out.  Very frustrating!

Ebay does not have an option to download my purchase history, so I must rely on PayPal for the information.

I would like to know why PayPal is combining all of the charges (price of item, discount, shipping and sales tax paid) in one total amount!

[sharpiemarker · Accepted solution]

@RusticSandy 

The only possibility I can think of are reports that PayPal has stopped splitting up the payments for eBay and lumping them up together so that PayPal fees are also calculated on the whole amount received, including sales tax.

If you need a breakdown, reference the eBay email receipt or the PayPal email receipt if they show the break down. 

[RusticSandy]

Thank you sharpiemarker.

Some of the receipts show the breakdown, others don't.  My best bet is to go to my eBay purchase history, one by one, and match things up.

Yes, I read some of the sellers posts.  They weren't too happy about the sales tax being included in the fee that was charged.

I buy a lot of products from eBay.  We're talking hundreds and hundreds of items.  It's even worse when orders were combined.

I guess I better get busy.

This year I'm going to start breaking everything down on a monthly basis instead of doing the whole year at once.

Thanks again!