California City and County Sales Tax Table by Zip Code
California Sales Tax Guide for online store programming
California probably has the most complicated sales tax rules in the entire nation!
You don't want to avoid sales tax issues when having an online store! More actually you can not afford avoiding it!
As a seller, you owe the sales tax and are responsible for paying the correct amount to the State. If you do not pay the correct amount, you are subject to additional tax charges plus applicable penalties and interest charges.
In California, tax rate is based on the city that the shipment goes to. General speaking, if shipping address is out of state, you don't need to collect California Sales Tax. In addition, digital goods are not taxable.
California sales tax rate varies statewide. The statewide sales tax rate is currently 7.25%. However, the rate is higher in locations where voters have approved additional "district" taxes.
Voter approved district taxes are levied on a county-wide basis and within many
incorporated city limits. District sales tax rates are normally the city sales tax rates.
As a seller, you are required to report and pay the applicable district taxes for your taxable sales if you are engaged in business in the taxing district. Otherwise you are only required to collect the state sales tax (7.25%).
When setting up the sales tax rates for online stores for business in CA, you need to know 2 different sales tax rates in addition to the state-wide sales tax rate 7.25%. One is sales tax rates for cities in your county and the other one is the county sales tax rate.
For instance, if your business is in city of San Jose, since it belongs to the county of Santa Clara, county sales tax rate is 8.25%. All the cities in Santa Clara county have the same sales tax rate 8.25%. So you are required to collect 8.25% for all shipments sent within the county. You would collect 7.25% for orders shipped outside of Santa Clara County but within the state of CA.
Let's see another example:
In Fresno county, all cities have the same county tax rate of 7.975% except city of Clovis whose tax rate is 8.275%. So if your business is in Clovis, you would be required to withhold 7.975% for all sales within Fresno County except Clovis. For Clovis sales you would collect 8.275%. For out of county sales you would collect 7.25%. However if your business is in Tollhouse(another city in Fresno county), you would be required to withhold 7.975% for all sales within Fresno county including Clovis. For out of county sales you would collect 7.25%.
Developed in-housed, we created California City and County Sales Tax Table by Zip Code for you to embed into your shopping cart. The effective date is 4/1/08. We update this table as Board of Equalization updates the rates.
Important notes before choosing a shopping cart product:
Before you buy or sign up for a third-party shopping cart for your online store that sells taxable items, make sure it offer the feature for you to set up different sales tax rates for each state. Otherwise it's impossible to comply with sales tax law.
If you are looking for a shopping cart program, we highly recommend PDG shopping cart products. Both their "Shopping Cart" and "Commerce" products allow merchants to set up multiple tax rules to accommodate customers in numerous jurisdictions (counties, city, ZIP code, state/province, and country).
We have been using their products in the past 4 years. PDG offers the most features at the best price we have found in the market. In addition, their technical support is superior.
For PDG clients, we offer a special rate of $50.00 to set up California Sales Tax rules for your shopping cart. This could save you up to 2 hours of work to do this by yourself. Please contact us for details.
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Format:
This California City and County Sales Tax table is created in Excel 2003. It can be easily converted to CVS format. Data is set up in one list. It has city name, county name, zip code and tax rate.
Click here to see the example of this list.
Pricing:
With 12-month free update, annual subscription is only $79.99.
Guarantee:
We provide Risk-Free guarantee. If you find any error, you will get it for free!
Please note:
Among 3,551 cities, there are 35 cities do not have zip codes. According to Post Office, not all cities have a Post Office or carrier delivery service. There is no ZIP Code assigned to these areas. However we do have tax rate and county name for these cities.
How to order:
It's very easy! We use Paypal to process payment. You do not need a papal account to send us the payment. Just click on the following button and the entire process takes about 2 minutes. Once payment is approved, you will be directed to a page to receive the California Sales and Use Tax By Zip Code Table.
More information about California Sales and Use Tax from California Board of Equalization's website:
- What is taxable?
- Who is responsible for paying sales tax to the Board of Equalization?
- Can I collect sales tax from my customer?
- What tax rate do I use?
- How do I know if I am required to report district taxes?
- How can I find out where special tax districts are located?
- What if I collect too much sales tax reimbursement from my customer?
- Are barters and exchanges taxable?
- Are trade-ins taxable?
- Are delivery and handling charges taxable?
- I make drop shipments on behalf of out-of-state retailers. Am I liable for sales tax?
- If I accept foreign currency as payment, how do I figure tax?
- Where can I get more information?
** This article is for information only. Please consult with your own Tax accountant for your questions.
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