Canadian Sellers on EBAY beware

maximus_cleanmaximus_clean
in Everything Else

Government Wins Right To Keep Tabs On EBay Sellers

Thursday September 27, 2007

CityNews

If you sell a lot of items on eBay, prepare to hear from the government.

The Canada Revenue Agency just won a court decision to obtain contact information for high-volume sellers on the website, in order to ensure they're getting their piece of the action. The agency wants to check that sellers reported all income made online, which could be taxed if it's over a certain amount.

The Federal Court order requires eBay Canada to turn over names, addresses, phone numbers and e-mail addresses of the people who sell over a certain amount on the website.

Not sure if that means you? Well according to a published report the government is only going after those people who qualified for eBay's PowerSeller program in 2004 and 2005, meaning anyone who sold more than $1,000 worth of merchandise in a month.

EBay Canada lawyers argued the CRA shouldn't have access to the information because it's a subsidiary of American company EBay Inc. and the customer information is stored in machines outside of Canada.

However Justice Roger Hughes contends the company must hand over the information regardless of where it's housed.

Canadians spend $5 billion online annually and eBay remains the largest Internet marketplace, racking up a quarter of total sales. In August 11 million Canadians visited the site.

Comments

  • DainDain
    Yikes... I hope the US gov doesn't follow suit. Or do they already?
  • maximus_cleanmaximus_clean
    Dain, not sure man, but if the CDN government is succesful, you would think the US government would already be putting their own case together.
  • skankinmackskankinmack
    Originally posted by: maximus_clean

    Dain, not sure man, but if the CDN government is succesful, you would think the US government would already be putting their own case together.


    all the more reason to get an NA marketplace together image
  • NationalGameDepotNationalGameDepot
    screw this. If this happens in the US I wouldn't be using ebay at all to sell. They already fee us to death, and then take another 5-10% for taxes on every purchase. The US doesn't do this yet as far as I know cause internet sells aren't taxable unless it is your only means of income of if you are a business. Load of BS. NA auctions here I come...I am sorry to our neighbors up north. image

    ~~NGD
  • nes4evernes4ever

    If this is going to happen then Canadien sellers should start charging a sales tax themselves to cover for the one that the government will take or file for tax exemption. Im starting to regret that I signed up for the Powerseller program because these are the sellers that they are gonna go after.

  • maximus_cleanmaximus_clean
    The sales tax is not the issue here. it is the income tax. The government is looking for people making a significant income through selling, not necessarily sales tax on those sales, though that might be another objective.

    Remember, most sales are made to the US anyways, so sales tax is not the large issue.
  • DainDain
    Originally posted by: skankinmack



    Originally posted by: maximus_clean



    Dain, not sure man, but if the CDN government is succesful, you would think the US government would already be putting their own case together. <BR>




    all the more reason to get an NA marketplace together image




    Yeah, until they start going after NA!
  • dangevindangevin
    Originally posted by: Dain

    Yeah, until they start going after NA!




    Ironically, I think the day that happens, "we win" image
  • DainDain
    No doubt, good point image
  • WERYWERY
    Fascistic news ey?! Well I do certainly hope it wont strike USA too since I do a lot of business with people in that country and I hope to carry on with that without any problems like this new one. I do business mostly with those ebaystore sellers so I got truoble if this system moves south
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