Brilliant Legal Advice Sought

Your publisher wishes to avail himself of the wise advice of readers. We know someone in the West who sells guitars. Twice a year this person goes to California to buy and sell guitars at an expo. For years, he got a temporary registration to do business, but then decided it would be simpler to get a permanent one. California evidently needs tax dollars, so an examiner called him to audit his mail order business to California. Although it would not otherwise have met the "nexus" threshold for California taxation, the California Board of Equalization had ruled in a previous case that "it is irrelevant whether petitioner had sufficient activities in this state to be engaged in business" if they possessed a permanent registration to do business. That was considered automatically to make all its California activities taxable.

To a layman, this seems grossly unfair. The guitar vendor got the permanent registration under a mistaken impression it was a substitute for a temporary registration. No one warned him of the dire tax consequences. Are laymen really expected to parse these things? Is there any defense now—unilateral mistake that wasn't corrected by the other party who knows better? Unequal treatment under the laws? Please let us know your thoughts and we will print them if you give us permission: BrilliantLegalAdvice@Bisnow.com. And if this turns out to be popular, we may make it a regular feature and invite other life-challenging legal queries and answers.