Definitions

"Manufacturer" means every person who, either directly or by contracting with others for the necessary labor or mechanical services, manufactures for sale or for commercial or industrial use from his or her own materials or ingredients any articles, substances or commodities. (RCW 82.04.110)

Manufacturer does not include:

• producers of aluminum master alloys, regardless of the portion of the aluminum provided by that person's customer.
• non-residents of Washington that own materials that are being processed instate.
• owners of materials from which nuclear fuel assembly is made for it by a processor for hire.

"To manufacture" embraces all activities of a commercial or industrial nature where labor or skill is applied, by hand or machinery, to materials so that as a result thereof a new, different or useful substance or article of tangible personal property is produced for sale or commercial or industrial use, and shall include:

The production or fabrication of special made or custom made articles;

• The production or fabrication of dental appliances, devices, restorations, substitutes, or other dental laboratory products by a dental laboratory or dental technician;
• Cutting, delimbing, and measuring of felled, cut, or taken trees;
• Crushing and/or blending of rock, sand, stone, gravel, or ore; and
• Cleaning (removal of the head, fins, or viscera) of fish.
  • A manufacturing B&O tax exemption is available for the cleaning of fish, if the cleaning activities are limited to the removal of the head, fins, or viscera from fresh fish without further processing other than freezing. (RCW 82.04.2403)

    Processors for hire performing these cleaning activities remain subject to the processing for hire B&O tax.

"To manufacture" shall not include:

• Conditioning of seed for use in planting;
• Cubing hay or alfalfa;
• Activities which consist of cutting, grading, or ice glazing seafood which has been cooked, frozen, or canned outside this state;
• The growing, harvesting, or producing of agricultural products;
• Packing of agricultural products, including sorting, washing, rinsing, grading, waxing, treating with fungicide, packaging, chilling, or placing in controlled atmospheric storage.