Were county charges for legally required public-record copies nontaxable when no statute or ordinance fixed the exact copying fee?

Plain-English summary

The San Diego principal auditor asked whether a county's furnishing of public-record copies required by former Government Code sections 6256 and 6257 was nontaxable when no statute or ordinance set the copying fee and the county instead charged a reasonable fee.

Staff Counsel advised that furnishing one copy was not taxable even without an ordinance setting the fee. The conclusion stopped at that one copy: if a person wanted more than one, the memorandum said the charge for making the additional copy should be taxed because former section 6256 required only a single copy.

The source gives general internal advice rather than applying the rule to an identified copy order. It supplies no requester, public record, number of copies, fee amount, fee computation, statute or ordinance search, invoice, return, audit measure, assessment, refund claim or later outcome. The May 10, 1972 principal-auditor memorandum posing the question is also absent.

Source posture and live annotation

The live 420.0072 annotation, in the 2026 revision of the Business Taxes Law Guide, retains the county, required-public-record, reasonable-fee, single-copy and additional-copy conclusions and the May 18, 1972 date. It turns the source's opinion that one copy is not taxable into a categorical statement that copies are exempt from sales tax, changes the source's singular fee to fees, and says additional-copy charges would be taxable where the memorandum says they should be taxable. It omits the internal memorandum posture, named offices and initials, May 10 request, copied recipient, missing transaction records and absence of an applied tax outcome.

CDTFA's Annotated Legal Opinions collection says the letters are summarized as annotations and that statutory law controls whenever a statute and annotation conflict. The official one-page PDF has a clean native text layer and no embedded images, so no OCR was required. Both fresh direct PDF downloads and both live-page downloads were byte-identical, and duplicate default PDF text extractions matched. The original-text section below remains byte-identical to its committed version and matches the fresh official extraction after removing only the extractor's terminal newline and form feed.

What this means for you

Public-record offices and tax professionals

Do not extend this historical one-copy conclusion to every government document charge. The memorandum depended on a cited legal duty to furnish one copy, distinguished requested extras, and did not apply its advice to an identified order. Confirm the current copy duty, lawful fee authority, number of copies and current tax treatment.

Common questions

Q: Did the absence of an ordinance fixing the fee make the first required copy taxable?

A: No. The memorandum treated one required copy as nontaxable when the county charged a reasonable fee.

Q: What did it say about extra copies?

A: Charges for additional copies should be taxed because the cited former section 6256 required only one copy.

Q: Did the source decide a particular customer's copy charge?

A: No. It identifies no requester, record, quantity, fee, invoice, audit amount or final tax action.

Q: Does the live annotation reproduce the memorandum exactly?

A: No. Among other changes, it says copies are exempt and extra-copy charges would be taxable; the source says one copy is not taxable and an additional-copy charge should be taxed.

Citations and references

• Former California Government Code sections 6256 and 6257 — cited in the May 18, 1972 memorandum
• May 10, 1972 San Diego principal-auditor memorandum; copy request and record; quantity; fee authority, amount and computation; invoice; return; audit; assessment; and outcome — described or implicated but not included

Verbatim support

From the official May 18, 1972 Staff Counsel memorandum:

Under these circumstances, it is our opinion that the furnishing of a single copy is not taxable even though there is no ordinance setting the fee that is to be charged.

However, this conclusion does not extend to supplying multiple copies. If a person wants more than one copy of the document, the charge for making the additional copy should be subject to tax.

This is based on the fact that Section 6256 only requires that a single copy be supplied.

Source

• Annotated Legal Opinions collection: CDTFA Annotated Legal Opinions
• Live annotation: Annotation 420.0072
• Original supporting opinion: 420.0072 PDF

Original ruling text

State of California

Board of Equalization

Memorandum

To:

San Diego – Principal Auditor (WLW)

From:

Staff Counsel (GLR) – Headquarters

Subject:

County of San Diego

420.0072

Date:

May 18, 1972

In your memo of May 10, 1972 you raise the question whether the furnishing of copies by a county of certain public records which are required to be furnished under Sections 6256 and 6257 of the Government Code are exempt from sales tax notwithstanding the fact that there may be no statute or ordinance setting forth the fee that is to be charged for such copies. In other words, the county merely charges a reasonable fee. Under these circumstances, it is our opinion that the furnishing of a single copy is not taxable even though there is no ordinance setting the fee that is to be charged. However, this conclusion does not extend to supplying multiple copies. If a person wants more than one copy of the document, the charge for making the additional copy should be subject to tax. This is based on the fact that Section 6256 only requires that a single copy be supplied.

GLR:lb
Cc:

Mr. Donald J. Hennessy