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Business Taxes Law Guide—Revision 2024

Alcoholic Beverage Tax Law

Business and Professions Code Provisions Relating To the Alcoholic Beverage Tax Law1

Division 9. Alcoholic Beverages
Chapter 1. General Provisions and Definitions2

Section 23025


23025. "Sell" or "sale." "Sell" or "sale" and "to sell" includes any transaction whereby, for any consideration, title to alcoholic beverages is transferred from one person to another, and includes the delivery of alcoholic beverages pursuant to an order placed for the purchase of such beverages and soliciting or receiving an order for such beverages, but does not include the return of alcoholic beverages by a licensee to the licensee from whom such beverages were purchased.

"Sale" includes giving samples.—Where distilled spirits are given away as samples, apparently for the purpose of encouraging the sale of the product, such distributions are not in the true sense gratuitous and hence they are taxable. Tonkin Distributing Co., Inc. v. Collins, 50 Cal.App.2d 790; Sauers Wholesale Co. v. Collins, (1942) 50 Cal.App.2d 786; Rathjen Bros. Inc. v. Collins, (1942) 50 Cal.App.2d 774.

"Sale" includes delivery.—There was a delivery of alcoholic beverages in this State and, hence, a sale within the definition when distilled spirits were shipped from a point outside of California to the United States Army on a military reservation in California under a bill of lading designating the shipper as consignor. National Distillers Products Corp. v. State Board of Equalization, (1947) 83 Cal.App.2d 35.

Delivery not deemed a sale.—See Section 23661.2 of the B. and P. Code under which certain deliveries of wine shipments are not deemed to constitute sales in this State.


1 See Section 32002 of Revenue and Taxation Code in this volume.

2The provisions of this chapter, except as otherwise noted, were added by Stats. 1953, p. 954, in effect September 9, 1953.