(a) Unless prohibited by the laws of the United States or the State of California, or exempted by the provisions of this Code every person using telephone communications services, electrical water gas or steam services in this City and County shall be required to pay the tax imposed in this Article and Article 10B to the service supplier along with the charges made for such services. This obligation is not satisfied until the tax has been paid to this City and County, except that a receipt indicating payment of the service charges from a service supplier maintaining a place of business in this City and County or from a supplier who is authorized by the Tax Collector to collect the tax shall be sufficient to relieve the service user from further liability for the tax to which the receipt refers.
(b) Every service supplier maintaining a place of business in this City and County, and providing telephone communications services electrical, water gas or steam services to a service user, not exempted under this Code shall, at the time of collecting the charges made for such services from the service user, also collect the tax imposed by this Article and Article 10B from the service user and on demand shall give to the service user a receipt therefor. In all cases in which the tax is not collected by the service supplier, as aforesaid, the service supplier shall be liable to the Tax Collector of the City and County for the amount of the tax due on the amount of taxable service charges collected from the service user under the provisions of this Article and Article 10B, the same as though the tax were paid by the service user. In all cases of transactions upon credit or deferred payment, the payment of tax to the Tax Collector may be deferred in accordance therewith, and the service supplier shall be liable therefor at the time and to the extent that such credits are paid or deferred payments are made in accordance with the rate of tax owing on the amount thereof.
The Tax Collector shall have the power to adopt rules and regulations prescribing methods and schedules for the collection and payment of the tax and such methods and schedules shall eliminate fractions of one cent.
(c) The taxes imposed by this Article and Article 10B shall be collected, insofar as practicable, at the same time as and along with the collection of charges made in accordance with the regular billing practice of the service supplier. If the amount paid by a service user is less than the full amount of the charges and tax which has accrued for the billing period, a proportionate share of both the charges and the tax shall be deemed to have been paid.
The duty to collect shall arise separately for each period for which a service supplier bills a service user.
(d) The Tax Collector may issue administrative rulings identifying telephone communications services that are subject to the taxes imposed by Section 703 of this Article and Article 10B. Such rulings shall be consistent with legal requirements and shall not impose a new tax, revise an existing tax methodology, or increase an existing tax, except as allowed by California Government Code Section 53750(h)(2) and (3) or other law. To the extent that the Tax Collector determines that the taxes imposed under Section 703 or Article 10B shall not be collected in full for any period of time, such a determination falls within the Tax Collector's prosecutorial discretion to settle disputes. The Tax Collector's exercise of such forbearance under this Section does not constitute a change in taxing methodology for purposes of Government Code section 53750(h), and the City does not waive or abrogate its ability to impose the taxes imposed by Section 703 or Article 10B in full as a result of such determinations and may suspend such determinations and recommence enforcement of the taxes without additional voter approval.
(e) A service supplier shall be obligated to collect and remit the tax imposed by Section 703 of this Article and Article 10B if it is "engaging in business within the City" as described in Article 6, Section 6.2-12.
(Added by Ord. 287-70, App. 8/28/70; amended by Ord. 262-93, App. 8/10/93; Ord. 21-98, App. 1/16/98; Amended by Proposition O, § 4, 11/4/2008)