Virginia Law

If a resident or nonresident buys a gift in Virginia and requests the seller to ship or mail such gift to another person, the purchaser is deemed to receive title to the gift at the time of purchase and the transaction is therefore taxable in Virginia. The location of the recipient of the gift has no bearing upon the taxability of the transaction; therefore, even if the recipient is located outside Virginia the sale is not a sale in interstate commerce. The following example illustrates this concept.

Example: A purchases a watch for $200 from a Virginia merchant, M, and tells M to send the watch to B who lives in Maryland. A must pay the sales tax of $10.60 to M at the time of purchase.

The recipient of the gift ultimately receives title to the gift from the purchaser and not the merchant and there is no relationship between the merchant and the recipient.

The total rate of the state and local sales and use tax in localities that fall within the Hampton Roads and Northern Virginia Regions is 6.0% (4.3% state, 0.7% regional, and 1.0% local). The provisions of this section apply to transactions sourced to the Hampton Roads Region and the Northern Virginia Region, mutatis mutandis. For definitions of the "Hampton Roads Region" and the "Northern Virginia Region" see 23VAC10-210-2070.