Amador County Wine Heritage District Tax

If your winery is within the Amador County Wine Heritage District (ACWHD), you may have heard that on January 1, 2025 a hybrid tax will take effect for all wineries in the region. This stipulates that 1% of all gross sales be funnelled into advertising for the Amador Wine Heritage District (learn more in their website here). 

If your winery intends to pass this assessment on to your customers, your business should start collecting this tax starting January 1, 2025. The amount of assessment, if passed on to each customer, shall be disclosed in advance and be separately stated from the amount charged and any other applicable taxes, and each customer shall receive a receipt for payment from the business. 

WineDirect advises that this district tax/assessment be labeled as “ACWHD” in a separate tax line via our Custom Tax fields - this will show the District Tax name on the customer’s receipt. In order to disclose the fee in advance, a simple note of “All sales are subject to a 1% "Amador County Wine Heritage District tax” , which should either be printed on tasting menus and/or restaurant menus or on a sign at the register/store.

Additionally, this District tax must be disclosed in any special events and wedding estimates and contracts. Please note that if a customer refuses to pay the assessment, your business is still liable for paying it.

We recommend that around December 2024, you reach out to our Support Team to enable the District Tax field for your Admin Panel. The process will be similar to the one already established for the Temecula Valley Wine & Agricultural Heritage District (TVWAHD) which you can learn more about here. Our Support Team is not advising that the field for this District Tax be enabled right now as there are still a few steps in the process for the Amador Wine Heritage District Tax to be fully approved.

We've also created some FAQs to help understand this change and how this can easily be implemented in WineDirect Classic.

ACWHD Tax - Frequently Asked Questions

1) What should we call the assessment on the sales receipt?
The assessment will be called “ACWHD Tax” in WineDirect's system and in the receipts.

2) The 1% assessment is charged on gross sales revenue. What does that include?
The term “gross sales revenue” as used herein means: the consideration charged by wineries, for all direct-to-consumer sales of wine, wine club purchases picked up on site, ticket sales, tasting fees, tours and private and public special events, or events where the assessed winery business furnishes food and/or beverages as part of a facility use fee or listed as a separate fee, merchandise, prepared and packaged foods for on-premise or off-premise consumption (whether sold in a tasting room or a stand-alone restaurant on-premise), pick up orders placed via telemarketing, telephone, online or email. Gross sales revenue shall not include, and therefore the assessment shall not be charged upon, any federal, state or local taxes collected, including but not limited to sales and use taxes/sales.

3) Does the assessment apply to any non-taxable items? (e.g. Shipping, Gratuity, Non-taxable pre-packaged food, etc.?)
 No, it only applies to items that you would charge California sales tax on.

4) Would refunded transactions refund the assessment fee previously collected on the order?
 Yes, just as you would refund sales tax, you would also refund any assessment collected.

5) Are fees collected for wholesale transactions?
 No, there are no assessments collected on wholesale transactions.

6) Our tasting fee includes sales tax and we “back out” the sales tax when it comes time to pay the state. Can we include the assessment in the tasting fee as well and use the same procedure?
Yes, you can. However, it is highly recommended that your receipts have a line item both for the sales tax and the District Tax/Assessment separately, as it will make your accounting much easier and will lessen questions from customers if they see other wineries charging both the sales tax and district tax/assessment and you’re not. In doing a bit of research, many of the wineries in the area do charge sales tax on their tastings as a separate line item.