Publishing
You owe tax on publishing if:
You are in the business of publishing newspapers, magazines, or other
periodicals in the City. It also includes distributing and delivering
publications in the City which are published elsewhere. The printing and
sale of books is taxable under the "job printing" and "retail" categories of
the tax code, not publishing.
Tax rate on publishing
The tax rate on publishing is 1.75% of taxable income. (Note: The Mesa
City Tax rate increased to 1.75% effective 07/01/2006)
Collection of tax
You may choose to charge the tax separately on each sale, or include
transaction privilege tax in your price. If you over charge any tax to your
customers, you must remit the excess tax to the city.
If your price includes transaction privilege tax, you can compute how much
of the total price is transaction privilege tax. You may deduct the total
city, state, and county transaction privilege taxes from your gross
receipts.
What is publishing income?
The gross income from subscriptions, notices, and local advertising as
defined above is taxable. The portion of the income which a carrier or
vendor keeps as payment for delivery is not taxable. Also you may deduct
sales of publications to retailers who are buying them for resale. The
income from publishing is allocated to the cities based on circulation as
described below.
Allocating the income from publishing
If your publication is distributed in more than one city, the income is
allocated to each city in which your publication is distributed for purposes
of reporting the taxable income. This allocation is based on the percentage
of the circulation within each of these cities.
After computing this allocation, there is often a portion of the income
which has not been allocated to a city for tax purposes. This occurs because
some cities may not tax publishing or because part of the circulation
occurred in unincorporated areas. This remaining portion should be reported
to the city of your location of publication.
For purposes of computing the allocations, publications distributed through
the U.S. mails should be treated as being distributed at your location of
publication. Your location of publication is the location of either your
editorial offices or your printing facilities.