The Canadian Taxman Goes Browsing on eBay

Kaneda2112 writes "A story in the Globe And Mail points out that the Canada Revenue Agency is now trolling eBay Canada for high volume sellers — looking to make sure eBay's biggest users are accurately reporting their income. They've successfully gotten a court order for the names, addresses, and other personal information for that website's biggest users. 'Canadians spend about $5-billion online each year and eBay is by far the largest electronic marketplace, accounting for about a quarter of the total sales. The site was visited by nearly 11 million Canadians in August, according to company figures. The CRA said in court filings that it is targeting people who qualified for eBay's PowerSeller program in 2004 and 2005. Only top eBay sellers can qualify for the program, which provides benefits to members. Those benefits include prioritized customer service, special promotions and sales tips.'"

Comments

Makes sense

[TofuMatt]

Most businesses I've bought from on eBay, even Canadian ones, who have stores, may be Powersellers, and are clearing operating like any other (online) consumer electronics business in Canada (selling, mostly new, goods to end-users) don't charge me federal sales tax. I mean, taxes suck, but they also pay for my healthcare, used to pay for my education, and I do a lot of work for the Government, so I realize that taxes ought be collected. I sound like such a commie, but I'm not. Anyway, I guess this is good. I don't want eBay business to dwindle, but they should be treated the same as Apple Canada or TigerDirect.ca. What else is there to say? Business, big or small, shouldn't be trying to dodge tax.

Re:Makes sense

[p0tat03]

Does it matter? Straightforward or hidden, complicated or simple, you end up paying the same amount in the end. If you want to support public healthcare, education, etc etc, you better be prepared to pay up.

I dislike how most people equate taxes to Bad Thing(tm). You really want to pay for healthcare yourself? Say you're rich and make 6-7 figures, you want to deal with the ensuing crime problems when poor people can't afford to? You want 40% of your health care costs to line the pockets of execs, or do you actually want medical care for that money? There are places where socialization is appropriate, and there are places it is not. For the most part IMHO the Canadian gov't does a good job at most things, and I'm happy to pay my taxes, because I know I will suffer if the gov't suddenly stopped taxing us, either directly or indirectly.

Re:Makes sense

[p0tat03]

If sacrificing a few dollars of my hard-earned income will reduce crime in the streets, enable the poor to pull themselves out of poverty, and give opportunity to those who have none, then by all means I will support it. After all, a prosperous, safe, and productive country is good for all Canadians.

See, the thing you're not getting about public health care is that... nobody's saying "the gov't must pay for it because the citizens are too broke", because 100% of our health care dollars come out of taxes in the first place. The population *is* paying for this, the money isn't falling out of some money tree somewhere, and overwhelmingly our public health care (designed for everyone) costs far less than the American equivalent (which doesn't even serve most of the population, only the poor), and on the whole has far better care.

I am willing to bet, strongly, that if you calculate the average lifetime investment by a Canadian into health care (in the form of taxes paid), it will cost far less than what the average American pays for his health care, and on the whole it will be on-par, if not better, than the care Americans receive. After all, 40% of your health insurance premiums go into "administration", whereas this number is closer to 4-5% in Canada, IIRC. Ceteris paribus, on that fact alone our health care will cost some 30% less.

It's funny how you claim that public health care will bankrupt your country. We've had this system for decades, and the Canadian government has been well into the black for the past few years, and we're running a trade surplus. Our currency is appreciating (for better or for worse), and we're well on the way to paying off all that debt we accumulated during the boondoggle of the 90s. Compared with your nation, who is dangerously in debt (per capita-wise higher than ANY debt Canada had ever run, and I thought we had it bad in the 90s), currency is falling against ALL other major world currencies... It seems like you guys are the ones on the road to bankruptcy, and you're not even getting free health care out of it!

I dont' get the classic American aversion to nationalized health care - I suspect it's a holdover from the "oh no, socialism/communism is EEEEEVIL!" conditioning of past years, but seriously, you people are ALREADY paying for your health care system, paying a MASSIVE overhead on top of the actual cost of health care to the insurance companies... A nationalized system won't be perfect, and obviously government bureaucracy is not the most efficient spending mechanism in the world, but it's a heck of a lot better than what you've got now. We Canadians can keep our overhead to 4-5%, there's no reason why you Americans can't do the same, and pocket the other 35% to improve the prosperity of your people.

The Law

[p0tat03]

Having helped my folks set up their own small home business, I learned a few things about tax law. There are two types of corporation - provincial corporations and federal corporations. As a provincial corporation, you only need to charge your customers GST, not the local PST.

This sort of, kind of bugs me. The law behind this was written in a day and age where it's rare for provincial businesses to trade outside their borders, and even if they do it's a minor part of their income, a drop in the proverbial bucket. But huge businesses like NCIX are still registered in BC, even though they make millions in sales to other provinces (especially Ontario) - and that's a MASSIVE chunk of PST missing, not to mention that it creates an unfair playing field for local businesses. I know many Ontarians who go to NCIX just to skip out on the PST, and it's arguably stealing business from local, er, businesses.

IMHO if the majority of your operations are not in your home province you ought to be forced to incorporate federally and be forced to follow the local tax laws wherever you operate (in Canada at least!).