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Business Taxes Law Guide—Revision 2024

Sales And Use Tax Law

Revenue and Taxation Code

Division 2. Other Taxes
Part 1. Sales and Use Taxes
Chapter 2. The Sales Tax

Constitutionality


Constitutionality.—The Retail Sales Tax Act, reciting that it should become effective immediately upon its approval, is not unconstitutional because not passed by a two-thirds vote in each house of the Legislature. The constitutional mandate, contained in section 1 of Article VI, that no act shall go into effect until 90 days after the adjournment of the Legislature, specifically excepts three classes of measures, i.e., acts calling elections, acts providing for tax levies or appropriations for the usual current expenses of the state and certain urgency measures. It is only the last group that requires a two-thirds vote. The Legislature has the power to determine by a majority vote in each house when the other two classes of excepted acts shall become effective. Even though the act failed to become effective immediately on July 31, 1933, when it was approved, the collection of taxes for the first quarterly period beginning with August 1, 1933, was not illegal for the reason that the act would become retroactive as to the period of time prior to its effective date.

The act does not contravene either the Federal or the State Constitution by depriving individuals of property without due process of law and does not unreasonably discriminate with respect to the different classes of businesses to which it applies. Thus, the act is not unconstitutional because it applies to retail and not wholesale merchants and to tangible and not intangible personal property, because it provides for certain specific exemptions and because section 8½ authorizes the retailer to collect the tax "from the consumer insofar as the same can be done." Roth Drugs, Inc. v. Johnson (1936) 13 Cal.App.2d 720.