Use tax applies to the same items as sales tax. Vendor location is the key difference. In 1998, the state Legislature adopted a law allowing counties to begin collecting the use tax, effective January 1, 1999. Many city governments were already collecting use tax. The Board of County Commissioners sets the use tax rate, but the rate must not exceed that of the sales tax.
Cities have similar authority.
Furthermore, the state of Oklahoma collects use tax equal to the state sales tax rate of 4.5 percent. As of January 2000, eight counties were collecting use tax. They were Caddo, Comanche, Cotton, Jefferson, Lincoln, Rogers, Tillman, and Tulsa. For the first seven months of the fiscal year, use tax as a percentage of sales tax collections varied from 1.6 percent to 8.0 percent, with the average being 4.0 percent, for these eight counties. Unlike the sales tax, the adoption of the use tax does not require a vote of the people.