California sellers permit question.

Last year I vended at a couple shows in Anaheim, and obtained temporary sellers permits for the shows.
Just recently I got a call from a lady working for the state ( at work ) and she asked me how many sale i made and such. I gave her the info and she then asked what I do with my "products" after the shows.
I explained to her what I was doing, participating in a hobby and selling snakes, and that after the shows the snakes were then brought back to my house and continued to be sold on online websites.
She then told me that I will need to obtain a permanent sellers permit for my home.

Now from what i understand sellers permits are free but you have to charge customers "taxes" and then pay the state quarterly those said taxes. But I don't charge "taxes" i don't think you even can on animals can you?

Im curious if anyone else has had similar situations?
Does everyone have a sellers permit and i just don't know it?

Thanks!

Following for interest.

I don't know if you need a special permit for CA, but do you have a business license? Technically every sale you make needs to be reported as income and you owe tax on it. If sales are made within the state you need to charge state tax, but if you're shipping out of state I think you're exempt (it gets a little fuzzy at that point...does your state get the tax revenue or the state you're shipping to? Welcome to the world of the internet :P).

Any sale made that's non-consumable is considered taxable, whether you're at a show or your house/business. You have to think of it as you're running a pet shop, you just don't have a physical store. Obviously if you're selling for cash there's no way for them to track it (not that I'm encouraging filing erroneous sales reports), but technically it's all taxable.

I don't work for the IRS but I'm pretty sure this is accurate. If someone else knows otherwise I would appreciate being corrected.

if I recall correctly, a business license is different from a seller's permit.
the business license is with the City and the seller's permit is through the state.
a business license is not required if the sales are incidental to a hobby.
A seller's permit (temporary or permanent) is required as a means for the state to collect sales taxes.
(please, correct me if I am wrong)


example:
When I ran sales for the SJSU Ceramics Guild, we did not collect taxes at the point of sale but rather paid them out of the commission we collected from the total sales.
The individual artists participating in the sale got their money (less commission) and from there it was up to them to report it as income that had not been taxed.

I will find out about the out of state tax thing (unless someone beats me to it).
What is most important is to keep clear records of your sales, in and out of state.