California Sales Tax Exemption for Manufacturing & Equipment

This California sales tax exemption for manufacturing provided in CA Rev. & Tax. Code 6377.1 includes “qualified tangible personal property” such as machinery and equipment, devices or software that help to run the equipment, pollution control devices, and special purpose buildings that are integral to the manufacturing process or are used for research. It does not include consumables with a useful life of less than one year, equipment used to store finished products that have completed the manufacturing process, or property used over 50% of the time in administration, general management, or marketing. 

In addition to the California sales tax exemption for manufacturing, this exemption also extends to purchases of machinery and equipment used in research and development (“R&D”). 

“Qualified person” means a company that is primarily engaged in those lines of business described in Codes 3111 to 3399, 541711, or 541712 of the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) published by the United States Office of Management and Budget (OMB), 2012 edition.

In order to claim this exemption, California manufacturers must supply their vendors with a valid exemption certificate. This is the partial California sales tax exemption certificate for manufacturing and research and development equipment (CDTFA-230-M). This certificate can be found at the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration (CDTFA) website. The California Department of Tax and Fee Administration was born out of the July 1, 2017 restructuring of the State Board of Equalization. This restructuring split the State Board of Equalization into three separate entities to guarantee impartiality, equity, and efficiency in tax appeals, protect civil service employees, ensure fair tax collection statewide, and uphold the California Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights.

Once the vendor has the exemption certificate they can file a claim for refund for the overpaid portion of sales and use tax on your behalf up to the statute of limitations of 36 months. The California Department of Tax and Fee Administration prefers that vendors receiving customers’ partial exemption certificates claim the refund in the form of a deduction on their sales and use tax return under Section D. The vendor should issue the purchaser a credit for the sales tax paid in error and amend their California sales and use tax returns as instructed.  For more detailed information about how to complete the return, please see the BOE-401-INST pages 10 & 14 .
If the transaction was subject to use tax, the purchaser may file a claim directly with the BOE.

As with all Sales & Use Tax research, the specifics of each case need to be considered when determining taxability. Additional advice from Agile Consulting Group’s sales tax consultants can be found on our page summarizing California sales and use tax exemptions . If you have questions, comments or would like to discuss the specific circumstances you are encountering in regard to this issue or any other Sales & Use Tax issue, please contact our sales tax consultants at (888) 350-4TAX (4829) or via email at info@salesandusetax.com.