Legal Question in Intellectual Property in California

There is not a single "yes" or "no" answer to this question, but the rules are fairly simple and can be found on the State Board of Equalization's Web site at www.boe.ca.gov.

Basically, the charges of the USPS or a common carrier line FedEx or UPS are NOT taxable if seperately stated on the invoice as freight or postage. Handling charges ARE taxable, as is a charge made by the seller for delivery in his own truck (not a common carrier).

If you are thinking about what eBay sellers are doing......I've noticed a tendency to charge CA sales tax on the so-called "S&H" ....... I suppose they are getting away with this because they do not separate the "S" part from the "H" part. If separately stated on the invoice, the shipping would not be taxable, but when the two are combined, that fails to meet the "separately stated charges" requirement and makes the whole thing taxable.

It would be interesting to know how much of that the sellers actually ever remit to the BOE and how much slips into the sellers' pockets.