Housing and Homeless Response Fund: personal income taxation: mortgage interest deduction.

Existing law requires the Governor to create the Homeless Coordinating and Financing Council and requires the council to, among other things, identify and seek funding opportunities for state entities that have programs to end homelessness. The Personal Income Tax Law allows various deductions in computing the income that is subject to the taxes imposed by that law, including, in modified conformity with federal income tax laws, a deduction for a limited amount of interest paid on acquisition indebtedness, as defined, with respect to a qualified residence of the taxpayer. Existing law specifies for these purposes that a qualified residence includes the taxpayer's principal residence and one other residence selected by the taxpayer, as provided. This bill, for taxable years beginning on or after January 1, 2020, would disallow the deduction of acquisition indebtedness with respect to a qualified residence of a taxpayer other than the principal residence. This bill would require the Franchise Tax Board, in consultation with the Department of Finance, to estimate the amount of additional revenue resulting from the above-described modifications made with respect to the calculation of taxable income under the Personal Income Tax Law by this bill and to notify the Controller of that amount, as provided. The bill would require the Controller, upon receipt of these notifications, to transfer an amount equal to the amount determined by the Franchise Tax Board from the General Fund to the Housing and Homeless Response Fund, which the bill would establish. Upon appropriation, the bill would require that moneys in the fund be used to finance immediate and long-term solutions to homelessness informed by a best-practices framework focused on moving homeless individuals and families into permanent housing and supporting the efforts of those individuals and families to maintain their permanent housing. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.