Guide · October 27, 2026

Marketplace tax paid twice. How to find it and get it back.

If you sell on Amazon, Walmart or TikTok Shop, the marketplace collects the sales tax on those orders and pays it to the state itself. Your own return should report the marketplace sales and take them off again. When a provider is fed those orders with their tax still on them, and nothing tells it the channel is a marketplace, it files and pays the tax a second time, every month, in every state. You find it by putting the marketplace’s own tax statement beside your returns; you prove it with that statement; and you get it back as a credit or a refund, state by state.

How it happens

A marketplace order carries its tax like any other. The customer paid it, the marketplace kept it and paid the state, and the order still shows up in your systems with the tax on it, because the sale was yours. Every system downstream, your ledger, your provider, is fed that order. The ledger books the sale tax-inclusive. The provider counts the tax as collected by you.

What stops the second payment is one setting: the provider has to know the channel is a marketplace. In Avalara that is a marketplace location on the channel, with a date from which it applies. When the setting is missing, or the channel was added after it, or a new feed starts beside an old one, the tax goes on your return and out of your bank. It does not look wrong. The return balances, the payment clears, and the state is pleased to receive it.

How to find it

1. 1

   Get the marketplace’s own figure.

   Each marketplace reports the tax it collected and remitted on your orders: Amazon in its settlement reports and tax documents, TikTok Shop in its seller statements, Walmart in its payment reports. That figure, by state and month, is the proof, because it is the marketplace’s record and not yours.

2. 2

   Get what was filed.

   From your provider, the liability report for the same months: tax filed by state, and the documents behind each figure. From the state portals, the returns themselves if you want the primary record.

3. 3

   Put them side by side.

   For one state and one month, does the tax filed include the marketplace’s tax? If the filed figure is roughly your own Shopify tax plus the marketplace’s, it was paid twice. Then do every state and every month since the channel started.

4. 4

   Check the ledger too.

   The sales tax accounts on your balance sheet carry the same mistake from the other side: tax booked on marketplace sales that nobody owed, sitting as a liability or already paid out. The same figure explains both.

How to get it back

There are two routes, and the right one depends on how much, how old, and which states. Through the provider: a credit document per original order, dated forward, so the next returns carry the credit and pay less. Quick, and it keeps the provider’s liability reports agreeing with what was actually owed. The care is in the sizing: a credit larger than a state’s monthly tax takes the return negative, which a state rejects, so the credits are spread over the months it takes to absorb them. Through the state: an amended return or a refund claim, with the marketplace’s statement as evidence. Slower, and each state has its own form and its own clock, but it is the only route for tax older than the provider will credit or for a state you no longer file in.

The route for each state, with the time limit, is in Getting marketplace tax back, state by state.

So it does not happen again

Fix the setting, dated from the day the channel started. Then check the next return before it files, not after: the marketplace’s figure for the month against the return’s. Pursor files only when the four figures agree, with the marketplace’s share read from the marketplace’s own record, which is how it found this one.

Questions people ask

Does TikTok Shop collect and remit sales tax for sellers?

Yes. TikTok Shop is a marketplace facilitator and remits the sales tax on orders placed through it in the states that have facilitator laws, which is almost all of them. The same is true of Amazon and Walmart. Your seller statement from each shows the tax it kept and paid.

Why did my provider file the marketplace tax again?

Because it was given the orders with tax on them and nothing told it the channel was a marketplace. In Avalara that is a marketplace location on the channel; in other providers it is a flag on the data feed. Without it every marketplace order is treated as your own sale, and the tax on it goes on your return.

How do I find out whether I paid twice?

Take one month and one state. From the marketplace’s own statement, the tax it remitted on your orders there. From your provider’s liability report, what was filed. If the second includes the first, it was paid twice. The free check does this for every state and month from your files.

How do I get the money back?

Two routes. A credit through your provider against the next returns, which is quick but needs care so no state’s return goes negative. Or a refund claim or amended return with each state, which has a time limit that differs by state. The refund guide has the route for each state.

Do I still have to file where the marketplace collects?

In most states where you are registered, yes: a return that reports the gross sales, takes off the marketplace’s share, and pays only the tax on your own sales there. Often that is a nil return, and it still has to be filed.