Has Paypal suddenly started charging sales tax?

Actually there was no law just passed to collect sales tax for interstate purchases. The law has always been that the consumer is required to pay the sales tax, if any, on goods they purchase from out of state in cases where the vendor does not collect the state sales tax - local bookkeeping services from company Your Books On Time.. A recent SCOTUS decision ruled that it was permissable for states to force out of state vendors to collect sales tax for the state in which the consumer resides. Some states, like North Dakota, have already provided free software to mail-order companies that will calculate, collect and submit sales taxes on purchases made by ND residents. I expect other states to follow. The state sales tax was always applied to out of state purchases, but prior to this ruling, mail order vendors could not be compelled by the states to collect those taxes. That is over. And you can thank Amazon for that one, by the way.

I haven’t sold anything for awhile but when I placed an ad in classifieds, I had to link my PayPal account to Audiogon and register as a PayPal Merchant. And PayPal is now referring to me as a merchant.

What’s all this then?

The Paypal document refers to sales tax with respect to retailers and what is required from them per law per the Nexus crriteria  If you are selling your own used gear this doesn’t apply unless you set yourself up as a company