Does the marketplace collect sales tax for me or do I?
Where a jurisdiction treats the platform as a facilitator, the platform collects and remits on the sales it facilitates, and you should see that reflected in your settlement reports. That does not make the sale disappear from your own tax position. You remain the seller, you may still have to register, and you may still have to report the sale even where you account for no tax on it. Read the platform's own documentation for each jurisdiction, because a platform that collects in one will not necessarily collect in another.
Do I still need to register if the platform collects the tax?
Quite possibly. The facilitator rules move the collection duty, and they rarely remove everything else. Registration may still be required because of sales you make away from the platform, because of stock you hold in the jurisdiction, or because the local test counts facilitated sales when deciding whether you are in the system. Registration is also what lets you recover tax on your own costs there. The safe order is to test registration jurisdiction by jurisdiction first, then work out who collects on which channel.
Why do the platform's tax reports not match my own sales figures?
Usually because the two are counting different things. Platform reports are organised around settlement and yours around invoices, and refunds, cancellations, shipping charges, currency conversion and the treatment of the platform's own fees all land in different places. Some reports also cover only the jurisdictions where the platform collects. None of that is necessarily an error, but it does mean a reconciliation is needed before either figure goes on a return. Build it once, from the report fields the platform actually provides, and run it every period.
Do marketplace sales count towards my own registration test?
In some jurisdictions yes and in others no, and it is one of the details that varies most. Where facilitated sales count, a seller who accounts for nothing can still be pushed over a test by volume the platform handled. Where they do not, only direct sales are measured. Getting this wrong in either direction is costly, so it is worth establishing in writing for each place you sell into, and revisiting it when you add a channel or a jurisdiction changes its rules.
What about the sales I make through my own website?
Those are yours entirely. No facilitator stands between you and the customer, so collection, reporting and remittance sit with you from the first sale that falls within the local rules. This is where sellers most often come unstuck, because the platform channel has been running compliantly for years while the direct channel has quietly built an exposure alongside it. Treat each channel as a separate compliance question and map them side by side, rather than assuming the platform's coverage extends to your own storefront.
Am I liable if the platform collected the wrong amount of tax?
It depends on where the rules place the liability and on what caused the error. Facilitator provisions commonly protect the platform where it relied on information the seller supplied, which puts a wrong product classification or a wrong shipped-from location back on you. Errors in the platform's own rate determination are generally its own. Either way the practical remedy starts with evidence, so keep the data you gave the platform and the reports it gave you. Without both, a query about a period tends to be settled against the seller.
What is a double tax treaty and what does it actually do?
It is an agreement between two countries that divides up the right to tax. Article by article it decides which country taxes employment income, dividends, interest, royalties, pensions, property and business profits — and where both may tax, it caps what the source country can withhold and tells the other to give credit. It also breaks residence ties and opens a government-to-government channel for disputes. What it never does is apply itself: a treaty position is claimed. See our treaty work.
How do I actually stop being taxed twice?
In this order. Fix your residence under each country's own rules, and if both claim you, apply the treaty tie-breaker. Identify where each type of income is sourced. Read the article that covers that income type, because it decides who taxes and at what maximum rate. Then claim the relief on the residence-country return, with proof of the foreign tax. Most of the tax people lose to double taxation is lost at the last step, not the first. See how double taxation is relieved.
