In Canada, you now have to pay tax on used items, bought off Reverb. As if I’m paying taxes on top of already inflated prices. As a seller, you now have to set your prices low, to balance the cost to the buyer.
Is there another platform for buying and selling used gear?
Aww shit I didn’t know this was coming. This sucks for sure. As always when it comes to taxes, it’s the government making it happen not the platform. Damn the man!
As for another platform there’s always FB Marketplace. Heck even elektronauts works for most stuff. You do have to be more patient to find a buyer though.
I’ve been having nothing but good experiences both selling and buying on the marketplace threads here on elektronauts.
Tax? On used items? Nuts.
In the same boat here. It seems as though Canadian listings have really died off on Reverb which is fine with me. Lots of stuff on kijiji but comes with its own challenges.
I got an email a while ago from Reverb saying you had to register a tax number as a business if you were selling on Reverb now, or at least that’s what I had interpreted. Didn’t bother me as I had already written them off. Seems kinda lame that they’re passing that tax burden on to the end users instead of handling it themselves, all the while I’m sure still taking the same fees if not more.
Dead? It was never alive as far as I’m concerned. (Australia yeah yeah)
Gumtree, private facebook groups for synth nerds. Winner everytime, no middleman.
Agreed. I think with the current fees/taxes buyers are paying 20-25% more than the seller receives (depending on whether the seller also ‘bumps’ their ad).
For used gear, this is ridiculous. I have used Reverb for years and it has been a useful platform for me, but it’s hard to justify now.
I don’t know how it works in other places but if you’re a business selling anything, you usually have to collect VAT.
Wait, so tax on domestic purchases? And a sales tax or what? I mean if it’s a domestic transaction and a sales tax, they should tax the seller, not you. That might raise the price, sure but you’re really not paying tax. Sounds really weird that you’d have to pay tax for every single used item you sell domestically, here you have to start paying tax after your profits exceed a certain figure or if the business can be considered professional. Most people never sell enough shit online to have to pay tax.
If it’s for international purchases, it’s an import tax and welcome to the club. This is why we have the EU here and why we never buy shit from the UK, the US or elsewhere where you have to pay import taxes.
It’s sales tax:
“As of July 1 [2022], Reverb collects GST/HST on eligible orders placed by shoppers in Canada. Reverb automatically includes the tax in the buyer’s total at the last stage of the checkout process. Reverb is then responsible for remitting it to the relevant tax authorities.”
https://help.reverb.com/hc/en-us/articles/7023355975955-Marketplace-Taxes-in-Canada
me too! never bought of reverb tbh
How I read it, is that reverb are going to collect sales tax on all Canadian sales. That ranges from province to province from 5% to 15%.
Not sure what happens to the collected sales tax for sellers that do not require to collect it though… are reverb going to remit it themselves on the seller’s behalf? Or, will they just pocket the bonus?
I haven’t used reverb for a couple years now for used stuff; the prices just don’t make sense. It’s become a virtual mall full of music stores basically.
Kijiji and Facebook marketplace here, but that only really works for pretty local stuff. I moved from Toronto to a small village on the south shore of Nova Scotia, so not muchbin the local market for me here unfortunately. I’ll save some money now!
Taxation will sooner or later catch with every commerce related platform…in the US since last year tax has been applied to sales.
Yeah, this surprised me a lot to have to include tax in items that were already payed by the first buyer?
It seems to me that it’s their way to get their share of something (that moves a lot of money) that they were not getting before 
Surprised how many people misunderstand who’s paying tax and why here.
Any shop or professional dealer has to pay sales tax. Do you think a vintage gear shop who make a tidy profit and run a business can get away with not paying taxes just because they sell used goods? The way Reverb now handles it is kind of unfortunate I guess, makes it seem like you the buyer are paying the tax, but in reality you’re not. The seller is, Reverb just adds the tax at checkout depending on which province you’re from and what the taxation % is.
Like before I guarantee you any seller on Reverb also running a business, be it a vintage gear shop or just selling for more than 30k a year paid their taxes. They just had to do it themselves, where now Reverb has automated it. If this change raises the prices, sucks but it’s not Reverbs fault, or the goverments. Then you should haggle the price down I guess, as you would do for any used gear you deem too expensive.
yes, that tentacle is going to spread a wide net and catch everything… there is a lot to catch for them now as they set up the logistical structure. big government…ppl asked for it they are getting it now.
didn’t say that…taxation has always been around but its catching up as commerce online spreads.
ok
I don’t know how it works in Canada, but what I meant was that if you sell something through a business then it would count as a a professional operation. If it’s you who collects VAT then pay it to your state or reverb does it for you, that is a different thing and largely irrelevant.
I don’t know where you read that. It says reverb will collect sales tax on ALL eligible orders. On second read, I guess they will remit it on behalf of the seller if they themselves do not collect. But I believe all sales will have a Provincial and Federal sales tax as of July 1st.
Businesses that needed to collect tax (above 30k threshold) already would have been required to do so; the tax line was simply built into the price. The big change here is that A) it’ll be list as a sales tax line, and B) ALL sales in a Canadian territory will be taxed.