Aliexpress charges sales tax?

Alibaba Purges 200,000 Tax-Avoiding Vendors as Nations Crack Down
Posted Jan. 9, 2019, 3:30 AM

And while the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that states can hold online marketplaces liable for sales tax not collected from third-party sellers, this has also thrust the biggest online marketplaces—that help customers with tax compliance—into gaining market share just because of the assistance they offer, according to Andrew Silverman, a tax policy analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.

Yup, exactly.
Ebay now collects tax on anything sent to NY. Like how many times can they tax the same used item?
Amazon sometimes, not always.
But from China? GIVE ME A BREAK. NYS has no way to monitor or collect that, and in fact the items come from sellers not even Ali. Total BS, they are keeping the money.

whenever I see a sudden tax amount I just abandon my purchase. no way I will pay taxes on a purchase overseas. I don’t believe they’ll pay that to the gov either

pretty sure aliexpress doesn;t charge me tax, i am in GA

wle

similar thing happen to banggood, gearbest and ebay….they charge australian buyers with “Good and Services tax” and i doubt they pay any tax to Australian government.

sort of like a scam and i’ve been avoid buying their products.

Yeah, sadly it is what it is. Pay the “tax” or do not order. One or the other. :frowning:

Amazon started charging me sales tax a few months ago, as did a few other USA business’s I buy different items from. Yet a few others do not??

’So far’… none of my China purchases have been charged sales tax. Those would be from BG, GB, & AE.
I figure it is coming sooner or later though. :person_facepalming: . :frowning:

I hope it is much, much later…. :money_mouth_face: . :money_mouth_face:

I’d doubt foreign vendors are actually remitting the tax, but there was a Supreme Court decision about a year ago that greatly expanded the requirement that online vendors charge sales tax on out of state sales. Search for South Dakota vs Wayfair for the details.

Thats because Amazon now has a presence in Bessemer AL. 855,000sq foot robotic fulfillment center scheduled to open soon.

So then when my parcel gets filtered by local customs I get charged tax twice as the seller don’t pay it to the state?

:open_mouth: :open_mouth: … Wow… that’s huge!! … Bessemer…. they probably got the property real cheap, that area has crashed & burned over the last 25 to 30 years. It’s all but a war zone now. :person_facepalming: :person_facepalming:

But either way… thank you for that info RobertB, I had no idea. :beer:

I buy at least 50 items a month from Ali Express. Today is the first time I’ve been charged sales tax. I honestly don’t believe they are sending those monies to the states. So far Wish and Joom are not charging tax. This new tax scheme on AE is going to result in much fewer orders from me. I do not trust it one bit

Interesting. EU member countries actually do cash VAT from each other, but taxes for non-EU imports remain a matter for the customs. Or customers, if something slips through (what it does in 99% of all cases).

If they do ask for sales tax, show that you’ve already paid. . .

Royal Mail usually collect the tax and duty if the customs slip is over the tax free threshold. Debbie recently had to pay VAT and £8.00 royal mail handling fee on a birthday present from the US. The fee was as almost as much as the tax.

Parcels under £15 are not charged VAT. Import duty doesn’t kick in until £135. The £8.00 handling fee roughly doubles the tax due on items like a $25 flashlight.

I often break up an order from China to stay under £15 per parcel. The low pound had made that harder. At current rates, £15 is only about $18. I can remember when it was more than $25.

https://www.royalmail.com/sites/default/files/International-customs-charges-leaflet-Jan-2017.pdf

All overseas dealers now charge Australian buyers sales tax, 10%. There is no way of avoiding it. They also apply the sales tax to any shipping charges.
I also doubt that all (if any) of the sales tax gets back to the Australian Government. I’m sure that they all have a very creative accountng system. Maybe PayPal does send tax back.

I am a licensed California reseller and am getting hit with sales tax - is there a way to have AX waive this?

I have shopped on Aliexpress frequently and for some time. They have suddenly started trying to collect “sales tax.” From what I know, they are not going to give anyone any tax money in the US. I think this is a money making project. They have made a lot of changes lately and not all of them are good. I refuse to pay the sales tax. I get my purchases into the “order cart” but I don’t pay for them. I then contact the sellers and tell them we don’t pay sales tax when shopping in a foreign country. I then ask them to remove the tax before I pay for the items. I hope this is not a trend from them that lasts a long time.

At least with me, everything was showing tax-free ’til I confirmed the order, then bam!, tax was added in that split second. Ie, at least for me, it didn’t show up as, say, on Amazon where the tax is shown and you then “confirm” that exact amount. Nope, this would show ~20bux every step of the way (even through PayPal) and then as soon as I’d confirm the order, again, bam!, the amount’s now 21.80 or whatever. And I’m staring at the screen, like, wtf??

The chances of them actually remitting it to anyone are probably close to zero

I’m in Australia & from time to time buy from UK dealers. Some of them drop the VAT on my ordere. Some still try to charge me VAT - I will not buy from UK dealers who charge me VAT which does not apply to overseas buyers.
When I queried this I was told I should just claim the VAT back from UK Customs :slight_smile: