This is a request for help
Dear sellers
This is a request for help
My store is now encountering a situation where we use the API interface to connect to Amazon and process full refunds for buyers on our own system. However, the remaining taxes and fees collected and paid by the Amazon platform are always not refunded, and if we do not refund manually, the fee will always be on the order page; the answers given by the Amazon platform customer service are simply unhelpful;
I know that this tax should be refunded by Amazon, but after we complete the product fee and shipping fee refund, there is still part of the fee in the buyer's order details.
Before August, after a full refund was given to the buyer, there would be no remaining amount on the order page.
This is a request for help
Dear sellers
This is a request for help
My store is now encountering a situation where we use the API interface to connect to Amazon and process full refunds for buyers on our own system. However, the remaining taxes and fees collected and paid by the Amazon platform are always not refunded, and if we do not refund manually, the fee will always be on the order page; the answers given by the Amazon platform customer service are simply unhelpful;
I know that this tax should be refunded by Amazon, but after we complete the product fee and shipping fee refund, there is still part of the fee in the buyer's order details.
Before August, after a full refund was given to the buyer, there would be no remaining amount on the order page.
1 reply
JiAlex_Amazon
@Seller_72K9Z6SsKl0pa
The remaining fees you're seeing after your API-initiated full refund are most likely the Marketplace Withheld Tax — this is the VAT that Amazon collects and remits directly to HMRC under the UK VAT on e-Commerce rules. Since Amazon is the one collecting and paying this tax (not the seller), it is Amazon's responsibility to reverse/refund that portion when a full refund is processed. Your API refund correctly handles the product price and shipping, but the tax reversal on Amazon's side doesn't appear to be triggering automatically as it did before August.
What I'd recommend:
Open a new Seller Support case — but be very specific in your request. Use wording like: "Marketplace Facilitator Tax is not being automatically reversed on API-initiated full refunds. This started around August. The product and shipping refund processes correctly, but the Amazon-collected tax remains on the order. Please escalate to the Tax Team or Technical Team." Generic support agents often don't understand this issue, so requesting escalation is key.
Document everything — gather a list of affected Order IDs showing the remaining tax amounts. This will help the technical team identify the pattern and confirm whether a system change occurred around August.
Run a comparison test — try processing a full refund through Seller Central manually on one order, and compare the result with an API-initiated refund. If Seller Central properly clears the full amount (including tax) but the API does not, this is strong evidence of an API-specific bug that needs to be escalated.
Review your SP-API refund calls — ensure you're including all line items in your refund request. In some cases, recent changes may require explicitly referencing tax line items in the API call for the automatic tax reversal to trigger.
Request a tax-only refund — for orders already partially refunded, you may need to ask Amazon to process a separate tax-only adjustment to clear the remaining balance from the order page.
You're absolutely right that this tax should be handled by Amazon — you shouldn't have to manually refund amounts that Amazon collected on your behalf. This is likely a system-level issue, and with enough documented cases, the technical team should be able to identify and resolve it.
Hope this helps,
JiAlex
