The UK government is charging a new Digital Services tax (DST), and while Amazon is passing along the tax to sellers, eBay said it would not pass along the tax to its 300,000 UK sellers..
We reported last week that sellers will pay an extra 2% in Amazon fees beginning September 1st to cover the tax. This week, eBay announced it won’t collect the tax from sellers.
In the August 10th post titled “Protecting your business from Digital Services Tax costs,” eBay told sellers:
“You might have seen a lot of interest in the news over the last few days about potential extra costs as a result of the UK’s new Digital Services Tax.
“This is a tax which came into effect on 1 April 2020 and is targeted at online marketplaces, social media platforms and search engines which attract sales from UK consumers. The tax amounts to 2% of all revenues made online from UK users on those marketplaces.
“eBay is one of the marketplaces which will have to pay the new tax – and a lot of you have asked whether we at eBay will be passing on this tax to our sellers in the form of new fees.
“We wanted to reassure you that we won’t do that, so you will not be charged additional new fees as a result of this tax.
“A big thank you to all 300,000 of you who sell on our platform and continue to make eBay a diverse and vibrant marketplace for sellers of all sizes.”
You can find the announcement on the eBay UK Announcement board.
WOW I just can’t imagine Greedbay passing up an opportunity to pad the bottom line with their FVF. The UK tax is perfect for that.
They’ll add the amount somewhere else…..
I would be surprised if Amazon UK is not held to account by the UK govt for the raise. It seems like a kick in the govt’s face.