Ezel / Tax Rulings / CA

Could a ceramics manufacturer buy wax and zinc stearate for resale when adding them before molding?

Short answer No. They improved material flow and helped release molded ceramics from the press, so they were taxable external lubricants and forming aids.
State
CA
Ruling
Annotation 440.1360
Tax type
Sales and Use Tax
Issued
1964-08-13
Issued by
California State Board of Equalization
Requested by
A representative asking about wax and zinc stearate used by a ceramics manufacturer
Topics
ceramics wax lubricants manufacturing aid sales tax
Source
View Original PDF

Apply this to your situation

This page answers the general question as of 1964. Ask about yours and see what current California tax law says, with citations.

Currency note: this ruling is from 1964
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 associate-tax-counsel letter dated August 13, 1964, published by CDTFA as support for a sales and use tax annotation. It applies the stated external-lubricant and forming-aid functions in molding ceramic articles. Another taxpayer should not treat it as binding and should check current ceramics, lubricant, molding, forming-aid, component-part, 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 ceramics manufacturer added wax and zinc stearate to a mixture of talc, barium carbonate, calcium carbonate, and ball clay before molding and firing.

The wax and zinc stearate improved the flow of material in the forming press and helped release the molded article from the mold. Counsel treated those functions as taxable use of external lubricants and forming aids, not incorporation for resale as finished-product ingredients.

Source

Original ruling text

440.1360

STATE OF CALIFORNIA

STATE BOARD OF EQUALIZATION

August 13, 1964

--- --- ----- --- ----- --- --“B”
This is in reply to your letter of August 10, 1964.
You state that your client manufactures ceramic articles from a mixture of talc, barium carbonate, calcium carbonate and ball clay. To these ingredients are added wax and zinc stearate, which serve as a lubricant and forming aid when the material is molded to shape in a forming press. The molded article is removed from the press and fired. It is our understanding that wax and zinc stearate are used as external lubricants in the manufacture of articles which are produced by molding. They improve the flow of the material being molded and also facilitate the removal of the molded part from the mold. In our opinion, wax and zinc stearate so used is purchased for use as a manufacturing aid and not for the purpose of resale as an ingredient of the finished product. It is, therefore, our opinion that sales of wax and zinc stearate to your client for such purposes are taxable retail sales. Very truly yours,

George A. Trigueros
Associate Tax Counsel

GAT:spg

[1b]

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