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Marketplace facilitator tax — stays out of your revenue and your Sales Tax

In the US, Amazon, Walmart, eBay, Etsy, Temu, TikTok Shop and Faire collect sales tax from your buyers and pay it to the states themselves. That tax was never yours. Your books didn't always know that: some channels imported it onto the order and credited it to your Sales Tax account, so the balance kept growing and someone had to write it off by hand each month. Settlement tax lines were just more codes to map, and they sometimes landed in revenue or fees. Marketplace facilitator tax fixes this. Tax a marketplace collects and pays for you now posts through its own Marketplace Facilitator Tax account, which nets to zero on every order and never reaches your Sales Tax.

✨ What this means for you:

  • Your Sales Tax balance shows only the tax you owe, so it agrees with your Sales Tax Liability report.
  • Marketplace tax stays out of your revenue and your fees, on every channel, whether you book sales per order or per payout.
  • Each order records who collected its tax, so an Amazon.com sale and an Amazon.ca sale are each treated correctly.
  • Past months that put marketplace tax in the wrong place can be repaired in one step, without editing anything already posted.
  • The month-end close checks that the clearing account is empty and nothing slipped into Sales Tax.

One switch in your accounting settings​

Turn it on with Adopt clearing treatment on the Marketplace facilitator tax card. SKU.io sets up the Marketplace Facilitator Tax clearing account for you, and from then on each new marketplace order posts a matching collected and remitted pair through it. Orders created before you adopted it keep the entries they already have.

The card also shows a health check: which channels are marketplaces, whether every tax code in your settlements is mapped, whether every sales channel says who collects its tax, and whether any marketplace tax is still sitting in your Sales Tax. If you change your mind, Revert turns it off for new orders.

The Marketplace facilitator tax card in accounting settings, showing the clearing account and four green health checks

Settlement tax codes get a sensible home​

Tax lines in Amazon, Walmart, eBay and Shopify settlements are now recognised as tax, and come with suggested accounts. If one is mapped to an income or expense account, SKU.io flags it for review and sends you an alert, so tax doesn't end up in revenue or fees by mistake.

See what landed in the wrong place, and fix it​

The Facilitator Tax report lists marketplace tax by channel and month: the tax on your orders, how much reached your Sales Tax, what the settlements reported, and the reclass needed to move it out. Repair posts that reclass for open months in one step. Locked months are shown but never changed.

The Facilitator Tax report, listing marketplace tax by channel and month with repaired amounts

Where to find it​

  • Accounting → Settings → General, on the Marketplace facilitator tax card, to adopt the clearing treatment.
  • Accounting → Reports → Facilitator Tax to see the impact and repair past months.
  • The Tax tab on any sales order shows who collected its tax and which account it posted to.

Full guide: Account for marketplace facilitator tax