I don't know if what's being discussed here is illegal or not, but here is what I've observed: - eBay started collecting sales tax from buyers in certain states early on in 2019 - sellers were told it would not affect them...and it did not seem to initially as the process was hidden from us...I didn't even know how much tax was being collected except when a buyer complained to me about it...end result, sellers were not paying any fees related to tax collecting - beginning in November, sellers now see how much tax is being collected both on eBay and through Paypal and Paypal is collecting fees from sellers on the tax amount - a lot of sellers (including myself) now feel like we're being ripped off because of these additional fees Now here's a couple things that I haven't seen anyone else comment on yet: - as a buyer who returned an item yesterday for a refund after paying the full price plus taxes, I received a refund for the item price, but no amount of sales tax was returned to me - as a seller, I refunded a buyer when they returned their purchase today...eBay said they would be refunding the tax to the buyer without disclosing the amount and since I never received the tax money, I was fine with that....however, when I looked at the refund on Paypal, I saw the amount of tax being refunded, the Paypal fee reversal which included the extra fees on the tax being refunded (that's good)....BUT the amount of the refund paid by me was greater than the purchase amount minus the fees reversal....it seemed I was actually covering a portion of the refunded taxes! Purchase price = $6.95 Total refunded to buyer = $7.61 Fee reversal = $0.22 ($0.20 for fee on purchase price + $0.02 for fee on tax collected) Refund of Tax collected by eBay = $0.53 Total for refund paid by me = $6.86 So, this all brings up several questions: - if the buyer paid $6.95 + $0.53 = $7.48, why is Paypal claiming to refund them $7.61? - if I'm sending a refund of $6.95 - $0.22 = $6.73, why am I actually paying $6.86? - did the buyer actually get any amount of sales tax refunded because I didn't when I received a refund as a buyer? - are sellers getting ripped off even further when refunds are made and buyers too if they're not actually getting the sales tax they paid refunded? I'm curious to know if anyone else has seen similarities when dealing with refunds (as a buyer or seller).
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