3 ms·

They have different rates even down to the city level take a look here http://www.boe.ca.gov/cgi-bin/rates.cgi?LETTER=A&LIST=CITY http://www.boe.ca.gov/cgi-bin/

• hga 15y ago
  In my home town of only 50K (before the tornado, it's Joplin, MO) there are sections of the town with their own additional sales tax, the theory is to improve that particular business district or to pay for the city's contributions to it (e.g. intersection upgrades). On thing I'm noticing as I work with receipts for my insurance claim is that of the three Wal-Marts in two cities we did and now shop at (the one we used to exclusively go to was destroyed and is rebuilding) each has two different sales tax rates (don't forget that rates also depend on what is being bought, e.g. food of certain types is taxed less). And then there is the statewide state sales tax holiday for certain back to school supplied in late August.... This is serious nightmare ... but much less so for a company of Amazon.com's scale than a potentially dangerous to it upstart.
  • hga 15y ago
    I forgot to add: my current temporary location is in an unincorporated part of the county, although part of the plot of land is in a 3rd city. What sales tax rate should be assigned to me for mail orders? For fairness (if you believe in doing this at all, which I don't), it ought to be the business district where I do the most shopping (the one that at the moment has precious few functioning businesses since most were totaled if not totally destroyed). (Note that I don't agree with charging sales tax on mail order purchases; the mail order companies do not benefit from taxes except, say, though that maintain public order, and that's party captured by the delivery companies they use which do pay local taxes (except for, I assume, the USPS, but that's another issue).)