Seller Tax Responsibility
This mandate applies when you list something for sale on Idea Maker — a physical make, a prompt, a template, or a licence to use one — and Idea Maker is not able to collect sales tax, VAT, GST or an equivalent tax on that sale for you. It sits alongside the Terms of Use, which continue to apply in full. Where the two say the same thing, this one is the more specific and governs.
In one sentence. Where we can collect the tax on your sale, we do, and we remit it. Where we cannot, the tax does not disappear — it is yours to work out, to include in the price you set, and to pay to the authority that is owed it.
1. Why this exists
Idea Maker calculates the tax due on every sale, everywhere, on every order. That calculation is not the same as being allowed to charge it. A platform may only add a tax line to a buyer's payment in a place where it holds a live registration with that place's tax authority, and it may only charge a rate it can establish and defend. Charging a line called "tax" anywhere else is not cautious collection — it is money taken under a label that is not true, which nobody is owed, which we could not remit, and which the buyer could recover from us with penalties.
So there are places where we compute the tax on your sale and deliberately do not charge it. There are three reasons that happens, and the app tells you which one applies to you:
- We hold no registration there. Registering creates a permanent duty to file in that place, so we register deliberately and in stages rather than everywhere at once.
- We cannot establish the rate. Either no rate has been verified against a primary source, or the only rate we hold is a state-level figure that would under-collect against the real combined local rate.
- Your buyers are somewhere we do not reach. A listing is worldwide the moment it is published. Even where we can collect at home, your listing can be bought from a place we cannot collect in.
None of those reasons cancel the tax. They only decide who is responsible for it, and where we are not, you are.
2. What you are agreeing to
By accepting this mandate you confirm that, for every sale you make on Idea Maker on which we do not charge tax:
- You are the supplier. The sale is a contract between you and the buyer. Idea Maker provides the marketplace and processes the payment; it is not the seller of your goods or your digital products.
- You will determine your own obligations. Which taxes apply to what you sell, in which places, from what threshold, is a question about your business and your location, and you will find out the answer — taking professional advice where you need it.
- Your price is tax-inclusive. Where we do not add a tax line, the price you set is the whole amount the buyer pays for the goods or services, and any tax you owe on that sale comes out of it. You will not invoice a buyer separately for tax on a completed Idea Maker sale, and you will not present a charge outside Idea Maker as part of the same transaction.
- You will register, collect, report and remit wherever your own sales oblige you to, on time, and you will keep the records those obligations require.
- You will issue the documents you owe. Where the law where you or your buyer are requires a tax invoice, a receipt showing a tax number, or a specific form of words, providing it is yours to do.
- You will not describe Idea Maker as having collected a tax it did not collect, and you will not represent yourself as acting for Idea Maker in any dealing with a tax authority.
3. What we do
- Where we can collect, we do. Where we hold a live registration and a rate we can defend, we add the tax to the buyer's payment, keep it, and remit it to the authority. That tax is never part of your earnings and is never taken out of your share.
- We compute it either way. Every order records the tax that was due and the tax that was actually charged, as two separate figures. Where they differ, the difference is the amount described by this mandate.
- We show you which is which. Your sale record in the app states, per order, whether tax was collected by Idea Maker or is yours to handle, and — where we did not collect — the reason.
- We will tell you when this changes. As we add registrations, sales that were yours to handle become sales we collect on. That change appears in the app and takes effect for orders placed after it, never retroactively.
4. Cross-border sales and customs
Physical makes shipped between countries can attract import VAT or duty at the border in addition to any sales tax. Idea Maker ships on delivered-at-place terms: unless the app tells the buyer otherwise at checkout, import charges are the buyer's, are assessed by the destination's customs authority, and are outside both your price and ours. Where a destination requires the seller to charge VAT at checkout on low-value consignments instead, and we are able to, we will. Where we are not, this mandate applies to that sale like any other.
Customs declarations are prepared from what you tell us about the item — its description, its value, its contents and its origin. Those declarations are made on your behalf as the exporter, and their accuracy is yours.
5. What this is not
This mandate is not tax advice, and nothing in the app is. The rates, thresholds and jurisdiction data Idea Maker uses are maintained carefully and cited to their sources, and they are still a general-purpose table rather than an assessment of your business. Do not treat a figure shown in the app as a determination of what you owe.
Idea Maker is not your tax agent, does not file on your behalf, and does not represent you before any authority.
6. If it goes wrong
If a tax authority assesses Idea Maker for tax, interest or a penalty on a sale that this mandate made yours to handle, you will reimburse us for it, together with the reasonable costs of dealing with it. This does not apply where the assessment arises from our own failure to charge or remit a tax we told you we were collecting.
If you believe an order was taxed incorrectly — charged when it should not have been, or not charged when it should have been — tell us from Settings → Get help with the order number. Getting the calculation right matters to us more than being told we already have.
7. Your acceptance
You accept this mandate once, for your account, before your first listing that needs it. Your acceptance is recorded with its date and the version of this document you read, and it applies to every subsequent sale you make on Idea Maker, of any kind, for as long as the account sells.
The record is not editable, by you or by us — it is a statement you made on a date, and the only honest thing to do with it afterwards is show it back to you unchanged. You can read it at any time under Settings → Get help → About. If you no longer wish to be bound by it, stop listing items for sale; you can take existing listings off sale from the app at any time.
If we revise this mandate we will publish the new version here and ask you to accept it in the app before it applies to your sales. Until you do, your existing acceptance stands and is the one that governs.
8. Contact
Questions about this mandate: support@ideamaker.ai. You can also reach us from Settings → Get help in the app.