Ezel / Tax Rulings / CA

Were charges taxable for packaging customer-furnished soap, cosmetics, or food into samples when customers also supplied the packaging materials?

Short answer Packaging taxable soap or cosmetics was taxable, despite customer-supplied contents and materials. Packaging exempt food samples was not taxable.
State
CA
Ruling
Annotation 435.1160
Tax type
Sales and Use Tax
Issued
1958-12-05
Issued by
California State Board of Equalization
Requested by
Los Angeles audit staff asking about packaging customer-furnished merchandise and materials into giveaway samples
Topics
packaging samples soap cosmetics food products customer furnished property fabrication labor
Source
View Original PDF

Apply this to your situation

This page answers the general question as of 1958. Ask about yours and see what current California tax law says, with citations.

Currency note: this ruling is from 1958
Subsequent statutory amendments, regulation changes, court decisions, or later rulings may have changed the analysis. Treat this page as historical context, not current tax advice. Verify current law before relying on any specific rule, rate, or position mentioned here.
Disclaimer: This is a California State Board of Equalization sales-tax-counsel memorandum dated December 5, 1958, published by CDTFA as support for a sales and use tax annotation. It applies historical section 6006 treatment to giveaway samples made from customer-furnished merchandise and packaging materials and assumes the cited food products are exempt. Another taxpayer should not treat it as binding and should check current packaging, samples, cosmetics, soap, food, promotional-use, and sales-and-use-tax rules. This summary is informational only and is not legal or tax advice.
About this page: The plain-English summary, reader guidance, and Q&A below were written by Ezel based on the official state tax ruling. The original ruling (linked on this page as a PDF) is the authoritative source for any reliance.
View original ruling (PDF)

Plain-English summary

A business packaged soap, cosmetics, and food products into giveaway samples for customers that supplied both the merchandise and packaging materials.

Under section 6006, as cited, packaging customer-furnished taxable merchandise such as soap and cosmetics was a taxable sale. The customer's ownership of both the contents and packaging did not change that result.

Charges for packaging samples of exempt food products were not taxable under the memorandum's historical analysis.

Citations and references

  • California Revenue and Taxation Code section 6006 (as cited)

Source

Original ruling text

State of California

Board of Equalization

Memorandum

To:

Los Angeles - Auditing (CHS)

From:

Headquarters – Sales Tax Counsel (JDP)

Subject:

L--- A--- C--- P--- Company
XXXX North --- Street

435.1160
Sacramento
December 5, 1958

Account -- - XXXXXX

In your memoradum of December 2, you state that you are making an audit of the above account, and inquire whether or not the charges for packaging of taxable merchandise, such as soap and cosmetics, for clients to be given away by them as samples, are taxable. You state that the merchandise and packaging material are furnished by taxpayer’s customers. The second question asked refers to the same type of transaction, except the packaged merchandise consists of food products. It is our opinion that, pursuant to Section 6006 of the law, the packaging operation performed constitutes a sale. Accordingly, it is our opinion that tax applies to the charges for such packaging where the contents, if sold at retail, would be taxable. However, it is our further opinion that where the contents are exempt food products, charges for packaging samples thereof are not taxable.

Jack D. Paulson

JDP:o’b

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