The lighting store now wants to have the customer pay me and then I pay the lighting store at the end of the month their mark up. ..I certainly don't want to pay the taxes on the "mark up" as my income. So how do we classify this in accounting?
If customers pay you, any future IRS red flag/audit can go back 5-years; to track fixture sales, lack of resale permit with CA State BOARD OF EQUALIZATION (BOE), lack of re-sale profit declaration for income taxes, and punitive fines for fraud and tax evasion.
The CA BOE legal department appeared clueless to my reasonable effort to find how building-trade contractors can best implement re-sale tax laws. They want to sell permits, not tell you how to avoid it. Further, there are different rules for each industry, its confusing, and perhaps unlikely the youthful clerks can master all of it.
They refered me to
www.boe.ca.gov , pub9.pdf and pub73.pdf, which summarizes Cal_Bus_&_Prof_Code_§_7045 (resale permit laws for the building trades).
Supplier clerks aren't much better, deflecting me to business experts, or certified-public accountants specializing in my industry. Suppliers, aren't required to assume nor explain re-sale liability, especially if contractor's voluntarily assume the burden. IMO, Its a business strategy to stick someone else with the re-sale burden, which you previously appear to have done well.
Permitting and accounting burdens may be worthwhile for the right volume of fixtures/projects. Otherwise, getting customer/owners to buy fixtures themselves may be the only legal way to avoid accounting burdens, or re-sale taxes.