swiftd03
Member
I understand that but part of your sales tax is RTA as well. They are kind of double dipping. For instance if you live in Issaquah, order from Bellevue and they deliver to your house in Issaquah you could pay taxes in location code 1714 which is Issaquah- RTA or you could pay 4014 which is Issaquah non-RTA. Tax rate is 10.1% in 1714 but only 8.7% in 4014. The Auburn area is terrible as well, 5 different location codes and 3 different tax rates (1700, 4000, 1701, 1702 and 2724). If you buy from Renton and live in a non RTA zone you still pay the sales tax portion of the RTA tax (an additional 1.4%) but you would not be responsible for the RTA vehicle registration fees.I think you're mixing two concepts - licensing fees and sales tax. If you live in a non-RTA zone, the licensing fees will get collected when purchasing at a dealer inside the RTA zone, but it will get refunded back later. Sales tax is where you take delivery.
Example from the sales tax document you linked above look at the first entries under pierce county.
PIERCE (Eff. 1/1/22) (2) (2) (2)
Unincorp. Areas............................. 2700 .029 .065 .094
Unincorp. Areas Non-RTA.......... 4100 .015 .065 .080
Unincorp. Areas Non-RTA HBZ 2789 .015 .065 .080
Unincorp. PTBA* ........................... 2727 .035 .065 .100
Unincorp. PTBA* Non-RTA ........ 4127 .021 .065 .086
Unincorp. PTBA* HBZ ±............. 2787 .021 .065 .086
These are all different tax rates depending on if they are in the hospital benefit zone, RTA zone or the public transit benefit zone.
Source: I used to be a district manager for NAPA auto parts, we had to code every customer we delivered to to a location code based upon their delivery address and maintain the sales tax rate changes by location code every quarter when the state updates it. I maintained the records for all of our customers in the puget sound area from Tacoma to Marysville.
From department of revenues website: Regional transit authority (RTA) tax | Washington Department of Revenue.