
E-Commerce – In The News
Our top story this week: Bloomberg Tax interviews Mel Stride from the UK Treasury
This week Bloomberg Tax, in an exclusive interview, spoke to the UK Treasury’s Financial Secretary on the latest legislation to combat tax evasion within online marketplaces. They discussed how HMRC is cracking down on compliance for traders, amid foreign sellers avoiding the levy on goods, through businesses like eBay and Amazon.
In summary:
- VAT fraud on e-marketplaces has become a priority for the UK Treasury and they have enforced a new legislation to create a fairer system and ensure sellers are not pushed from sites such as Amazon, by holding the marketplaces jointly liable
- New laws introduced on the 15th March make e-marketplaces liable for online traders in the UK
- E-marketplaces must ensure traders display a valid VAT number.
- The government sees e-commerce as positive and looks to continue to share tax Data with Europe, post-Brexit.
To see the full interview:
Image Credit: Bloomberg Tax
Weekly Round-Up
- Up to 40% of VAT evasion may be from UK sellers not Chinese sellers says HMRC.
By Chris Dawson
The surprising news is that HMRC and the government have revised their estimates of how much VAT evasion is down to Chinese and other overseas sellers.
An agreement is being put in place by HMRC with Marketplaces such as eBay and Amazon, in a bid to reduce VAT evasion.
Read the full article here:
- ShippingEasy has integrated with Bonanza Marketplace, making it even easier for sellers:
By Richard Meldner
Seattle based Bonanza is a fast-growing online marketplace with over 28 million listed items that offers a long-term sustainable solution for sellers to build their business.
With the new integration, ShippingEasy customers can map Bonanza orders, print labels, update tracking and set customer and shipping preferences.
Read the full article:
- It’s a good time to invest in e-commerce! For some top tips on launching or investing in e-stores head to:
By Jen Saunders
If you haven’t noticed, the e-commerce is taking the world by storm, and for good reason. The industry is well established but also willing to innovate. There are a handful of big players like Amazon and eBay, but there is also plenty of room for small business start-ups. The bottom line? It’s a good time to invest in e-commerce.
Read the full article
- Trump’s tax attack on Amazon is bad for small businesses
By Krystal Hu
It is extremely difficult for third-party sellers to figure out tax codes and filing requirements, which vary by state and country. For a mall business, it is an overwhelming administrative hassle, so a lot of them just choose not to charge a sales tax.
Amazon provides third-party sellers with a tax calculation service, but charges 2.9% of all sales and uses taxes and other transaction-based charges it calculates. According to sellers, it hasn’t made things any easier since they still need to go to great length to file tax returns in each state.
Read the full article:
- A Quarter OF Amazon Sellers’ Revenue Came From Cross-border Sales in 2017
By Daniel Keyes
Over a quarter of the global revenue generated by sellers on Amazon in 2017 came from cross-border sales, Eric Broussard, Amazon’s VP of international Marketplaces and Retail, told Reuters.
Though Amazon doesn’t disclose total gross merchandise sales, analysts estimated cross-border sales to be between $50 billion and $ 75 billion.
Read the full article
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