Sell your car to Carmax or a dealer. Prices are high right now. Carmax offered me $22,000 for a car I bought three years ago for $24,000. Took it to my dealer and they matched the price for a trade.

This is true. Back in the mid 80's, I had an acquaintance that purchased an expensive car part only available out of state. He did not pay sales tax to the company selling the item BUT the state of Florida DID contact him and force him to pay the sales tax on the item. At that time, Florida did not require a company without any
physical present (warehouse, store, etc.) in the state selling the item to collect the sales tax but they did require them to notify the state of major purchases. A couple of years ago, they did announce that they were changing the enforcement of the sales tax law and now require the seller to collect the taxes.

Why should you pay tax on a used item ? It’s double taxation…

This has been going on for several years. You just didn’t notice. Before that, for a number of years, there was no tax if the item was shipped from out of state and the seller had no presence on the ground in the state where you lived. But of course now Amazon has distribution warehouses in every state. I believe nearly all states except Delaware are charging sales tax on online purchases. One good thing is that if you buy something from Europe, you don’t have to pay VAT, which is much higher than sales tax, and I’ve never had to pay Customs fees, including for expensive musical instruments and paintings.

Not quite on topic, but maybe interesting to you. Yesterday I sold an old music book on Amazon for $5. The buyer paid $5 plus $3.99 for shipping, so $8.99 total. My actual shipping cost was $3.19. The cardboard mailer cost me $0.75. Perhaps a dime in tape and interior packing. I bought the shipping through Amazon, having done the measuring and taping myself, and got a discount. I mailed it when I picked up my mail, so no extra cost. After various Amazon fees and tax that I was charged, what was my total profit out of the $8.99 the buyer paid? Twenty-seven cents.

Check out how eBay calculates their fees. It used to be only on the item you sold, not the cost of shipping or other fees. You used to be able to sell an item for $5 and charge $100 shipping and you would only get charged an eBay fee on the $5. I’m not sure that has changed. As a buyer your paying the sales tax

New Tax
 

Last month EBay announced they would be collecting sales tax across EBay based on your registered home address. This in every state not just Florida. This has been in progress for several years. All EBay members were notified via an email with the option to opt out and discontinue their EBay account.

I agree with you. Suppose if one worked remotely for a business online that was in another state would they think they wouldn’t have to pay income tax?

Hmm..
Buying something and paying a sales tax.

Unheard of.

That game of no sales tax ended years ago.

I would like to see the body weight tax, if you are obese your medical costs and taxation should be structured accordingly. Why should I comingle with morbidly obese people that jack up costs for all.

I don’t think the tax is the result of a state law. I’m pretty sure the collection of state and local sales taxes is the result of a federal law requiring online merchants to collect state taxes and local taxes, then distribute those collections to the state or locality where the purchase was shipped.

Other than online shoppers who became accustomed to tax-free shopping, shareholders of Amazon, eBay, and all the other online merchants should squawk because of the expense of the administration of the tax collections and re-distributions back to thousands of states, counties and localities. You’re probably paying twice—the merchants won’t do all that required administration for nothing. Without question they have increased their prices to cover the additional administrative costs.

You were charged the 7% sales tax because you happened to hit upon a seller who is licensed to collect the sales tax. Many ebay sellers are not licensed (same with Amazon sellers) and would be committing fraud if they did collect the tax.

Sales tax on eBay sales over a year old
 

This is nothing new, and sales tax has been charged on internet sales for over a year! Very few states do Not charge tax on internet sales. We are lucky to only have 7.05% sales tax! New York is 8.52%, Tennessee is 9.55%, Texas 8.19%. For the 3rd biggest state in the Country, we are doing very well in this area!

Tax
 

That's been in force for anthing sold or shipped in or through a FL. based distribution center or facility. Very hard to find anyone shipping into the state that doesn’t charge tax anymore.

Selling cars is not done under that process on EBay. They have a sales insertion fee that ranges from $19 to $79 depending on the number of photos inserted and some other things in the ads. This is paid up front when you send in your ad. For a low volume seller like an individual that may sell one car a year, that is the total fee. They do not charge any added fee if the car sells. You can see the fees via EBay at

Fees for selling a vehicle on eBay Motors

Back in 1997 when we moved to Florida, we purchased a kitchen set at the factory located in High Point NC. The truck bill of lading was checked at the Florida border and Lake County billed me 7% tax on the furniture. Amazon has been collecting Florida sale tax for the past several years.

The worst refund experience of my life was on EBAY
 

It took over a month and over 10 emails to get my small amount of money back