Online food delivery companies should be collecting sales tax from their customers, Sen. Brad Hoylman urged in a letter this month to New York tax officials.

Hoylman, a Democrat from Manhattan, was raising the concern after a Recode article found popular food delivery services like UberEats and Door Dash were not collecting sales tax.

The result is potentially $120 million in lost revenue for New York and California alone, based on some calculations.

At the same time, Hoylman wants officials at the Department of Taxation and Finance to audit food delivery companies for sales tax collection, while also have officials issue a guidance to fix the practice.

Hoylman also pointed to the state's budget gap, noting New York could use all its worth at this time.

"As you know well, New York State currently faces a budget deficit for the upcoming fiscal year of more than $6 billion," Hoylman wrote in the letter. "At a time when elected officials across the state are faced with making difficult decisions about how best to address this deficit, it is unconscionable that some of these companies - many of which are backed by billions of dollars in venture capital investments — may be failing to collect and remit basic sales tax."

In a guidance, the Department of Taxation and Finance said it does not consider food delivery services a taxable service.

"When a restaurant is delivering the food, we consider the delivery charge to be part of the charge for the meal, and that entire charge is subject to sales tax," the company said. "When someone else is delivering the food, and separately charging for that delivery, then that charge is not part of the meal charge for purposes of the sales tax."