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New Deckel slotting head owner wondering about sales tax on purchase from Canada

jariou

Cast Iron
Joined
Jan 20, 2008
Location
Cary, NC
Hi Guys,

I've owned my FP1 for close to 2 years now and, last night, I made an offer on a slotting head in Montreal on eBay and we made a deal.

In the end, I paid about $100 more than what I was hoping to pay initially, but I'm ok with that. But then, when I got the invoice there was about another $100 in sales tax. That surprised me, because the seller is in Canada.

How does this work? I just can't see that the seller will send that money to the North Carolina treasury ever. I understand that some sellers in the US are required to collect sales tax, and I assume that there is a similar requirement in Canada. But even before the internet, there was never any sales tax collected for purchase outside the country I thought.

Is there anyone with more experience with such across the border purchases that knows what is what here? I have not paid yet, and I will call the seller later today to talk about pick up. I would like to know what I can do exactly. I don't want to badmouth him really, but when I got the invoice, it felt like a sneaky way to extract more money out of me. If it was a domestic transaction, I would understand, but this does not seem right to me.

Apologies if you think I should have just put this in a general forum. I put it here, because it is a Deckel purchase, but perhaps I am limiting my exposure. Anyway, I hope someone can give me some advice about this. If it is the law, that's fine, I'll just pay, I just want to make sure I'm not getting screwed.

Thanks,

Jacques
 
The seller never sees that money. Ebay collects it and send it to your state. If you have a NC exemption or can claim it for manufacturing, you can file that with ebay, but your seller has nothing to do with it.
 
As a Canadian, I don’t pay sales tax on purchases in US to individual states. I do have to pay Canadian taxes on foreign purchases being imported into Canada. You shouldn’t have paid any Canadian taxes on an export from Canada. Don’t know about rules in your state.

L7
 
As a Canadian, I don’t pay sales tax on purchases in US to individual states. I do have to pay Canadian taxes on foreign purchases being imported into Canada. You shouldn’t have paid any Canadian taxes on an export from Canada. Don’t know about rules in your state.

L7

Right, that's what I am saying.
 
In PA it's called 'Use Tax' meaning they collect for the purchase here instead of at the point of sale, when the sale is not taxable at the point of sale, I suspect NC is doing the same thing. The states got wise to all the sales tax income they were losing on internet sales from outside jurisdictions and are forcing businesses with a presence in their state to collect their sales tax for them. This is not new, in the past it was just not honored where it didn't have to be honored, now there's legislation allowing it to be enforced. Anyway, it's ebay doing it, not your seller in Canada. When I sell something, Ebay charges the buyer and sends the tax $ to the PA dept of Revenue, it shows up on all my paperwork including the Paypal paperwork but I never see the money.
 
A few months ago I sold a Deckel part to someone in the US via Ebay. Same thing happened -- they got charged sales tax on the purchase from Germany, which was added by Ebay on top of the item cost and shipping cost. As Mud says, I never saw that money, it was intercepted by Ebay/PayPal. I have the impression that this was the State of California but am not certain.
 
If you guys read the tax forms you are supposed to say how much $ you spend on out of state goods and voluntarily pay the taxes. I have been seeing sales tax added to all my out of state purchases, not my local sales tax rate, it is lower. I dont pay enough attention to see if it is different for each state the items come from or is it a federal tax- no variation by state.
 
Bruce,

Thanks, that transaction is exactly as mine, sold from outside the US to a buyer in the US, me. I did a bit of searching last night, and it seems like this is likely what is happening.

Funny, today, I don't feel so bad about it anyway, it's only money!;-) It's not like $100 more or less is going to change most anybody's life. I just go initially surprised and irritated.

Now, I'm looking forward to see how this thing work. But it may take a while. A friend is picking it up for me later this week or early next week. Then I'll pick it up from him later this summer when I visit family in Quebec. But at least, I don't need to search for that attachment anymore.

Thanks for the help.

Jacques
 
Thanks, that transaction is exactly as mine, sold from outside the US to a buyer in the US, me. I did a bit of searching last night, and it seems like this is likely what is happening.

Funny, today, I don't feel so bad about it anyway, it's only money!;-) It's not like $100 more or less is going to change most anybody's life. I just go initially surprised and irritated.

Now, I'm looking forward to see how this thing work. But it may take a while. A friend is picking it up for me later this week or early next week. Then I'll pick it up from him later this summer when I visit family in Quebec. But at least, I don't need to search for that attachment anymore.
I think the seller is obliged to charge you the sales tax (~15% in Quebec) unless it's being shipped out of country or province.
 








 
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