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Comment by javagram | Hacker News Reader

This back tax collection seems weird.

Doesn’t CA have a use tax law like other states requiring taxpayers to file and pay the sales tax as part of their yearly income tax filing?

I know most people commit tax fraud and fill 0 in on that but in the case of people who did pay those use taxes, the state is now double dipping and getting the money from the retailer as well as the customer.

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Nope. The sales tax is imposed on the retailer, and is collected at time of purchase.

In the case of interstate commerce (and catalog ordering, crossing the border to buy if you live nearby, etc) they have the concept of "use tax" where you must pay the equivalent of sales tax on goods you bought to use in your home state without paying state income tax. You are expected to pay use tax on goods you purchase on the internet tax-free at income tax filing time, and (a vanishingly small number of, I'm sure) honest people have been reporting their purchases and paying tax on goods purchased on the internet. Retroactively taking sales tax from those retailers would double-dip.

Sales taxes are imposed on the buyer, but is collected by the seller. That is why buyers are supposed to file use tax returns for out-of-state purchases.

This is in contrast to something like Hawaii's GET, which is a tax on the seller that is "passed on" to the buyer.

In the state of California, sales tax is imposed on the retailer. The retailer has the option of collecting that tax from the buyer.

https://www.boe.ca.gov/sutax/faqtaxrate.htm#1

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