A Notice of Determination from the CDTFA starts a 30-day clock. File a petition for redetermination inside it and the assessment cannot be collected while your case is heard. Miss it and the liability becomes final — and your only path back is paying first and suing for a refund.
That is the whole reason this page exists: the petition deadline is the single most consequential date in a California sales tax dispute, and it is the one businesses most often burn while deciding what to do.
What the petition is
A written protest of the determination — the amounts contested, the grounds, and a request for an appeals conference. It does not need to be a brief; it needs to be timely, specific enough to preserve your issues, and filed with the right office. Once filed, collection holds and the case moves to the CDTFA’s appeals process, where the working papers get re-examined by someone other than the auditor who wrote them.
The road after filing
Appeals conference: an independent review with the Appeals Bureau — the first genuinely neutral look at the audit. New evidence is welcome here: corrected exemption certificates, better samples, industry data the auditor ignored.
Settlement: parallel to appeals, the CDTFA’s settlement program can resolve cases on litigation-risk math — a lane worth evaluating in any case with real hazards for the agency.
Office of Tax Appeals: if the redetermination goes against you, the OTA hears the case fresh — an administrative tribunal independent of the CDTFA, with published opinions and real win rates for prepared taxpayers.
If the 30 days already passed
The determination is final, but the dispute is not necessarily over: pay the liability (or a unit of it) and file a claim for refund, which re-opens the merits and can end in the same OTA forum. It is a worse road — you are out the cash while it runs — but it exists, and for strong cases it is worth taking. This is also the posture where collections defense and the merits fight run at the same time.
How engagements work
Many matters like this one run as a monthly flat-fee engagement: one number, agreed up front, that covers the work — agency contact, deadlines, document responses, strategy — until the matter resolves. Shorter, well-defined projects are often a one-time flat fee instead, and some matters genuinely fit hourly billing better. We will tell you which you are looking at on the first call, before you commit to anything. If you want the details first, see how we price our work.
Holding a Notice of Determination?
The filing window is short. Tell us the notice date and we will respond within one business day.
Related: CDTFA audit defense · the appeal process in depth · California sales tax practice.
By Sam Brotman, JD, LLM, MBA — managing attorney, Brotman Law. CA Bar No. 274966. Last updated August 29, 2026.
