Underground storage tanks: fees: deficiency determinations.

Existing law requires the owner or operator of an underground petroleum storage tank, or other responsible party, to pay a specified maintenance fee for each gallon of petroleum placed in an underground storage tank that he or she owns, and to take corrective action, as defined, in response to an unauthorized release of petroleum from the tank. Existing law, the Underground Storage Tank Maintenance Fee Law, requires that the State Board of Equalization administer and collect those underground storage tank fees and prescribes procedures for the administration and collection of those fees. Existing law authorizes the board, if it is dissatisfied with a specified report file or the amount of fee paid to the board under those provisions, or if no report has been filed or no payment or payments of fees have been made to the state by any fee payer, to compute and determine the amount of fees to be paid, based on any information available to it. In the case of the failure to make a related report or return, existing law requires every notice of determination of an amount due to be given within 8 years after the date that the report or return was due. This bill would allow the board, if the board finds that a person failed to make a report or return because he or she was a qualified absentee owner of an underground storage tank, to reduce the period of liability for those fees from more than 12 quarters of liability within an 8-year period to 3 years, unless the board had contact with the owner, as specified. The bill would define the term "qualified absentee owner" for purposes of those provisions.