Sales and use taxes: State Board of Equalization: administration: interest.

The Sales and Use Tax Law requires the payment of interest at a specified rate on a failure to timely pay taxes, specified prepayments, and amounts collected as tax under that law, from the date on which those amounts became due and payable to the state until the date of payment. That law authorizes the State Board of Equalization, in its discretion, to relieve all or any part of interest imposed under specified circumstances. This bill would allow the members of the board, meeting as a public body, to relieve all or any part of the interest imposed, not to exceed a specified amount in a 12-month period, if the board finds, in its discretion, that a person's failure to make a timely payment was due to extraordinary circumstances, as defined, and that it is inequitable to compute interest in accordance with existing law, and if the person, among other things, pays the amount due on which the interest is imposed and files with the board a statement under penalty of perjury setting forth specified information. By requiring persons to make these statements under penalty of perjury, this bill would expand the circumstances under which a person may be convicted of the crime of perjury and thereby impose a state-mandated local program. The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.