Asm. Freddie Rodriguez

The Personal Income Tax Law and the Bank and Corporation Tax Law allow various credits against the taxes imposed by those laws, including a credit for a farmer to donate fresh foods and vegetables to a food bank. This bill would allow a credit against those taxes for each taxable year, beginning on and after January 1, 2017, and before January 1, 2023, to a taxpayer that donates qualified food, as defined, of its trade or business to an organization located in California and exempt from federal income taxation, as specified. This bill would take effect immediately as a tax levy.

Existing law requires the Department of Motor Vehicles to withhold the registration or the transfer of registration of any vehicle or vessel, and to withhold identification or transfer of ownership of any off-highway vehicle subject to identification, until the applicant for registration or identification pays to the department the use tax measured by the sales price of the vehicle or vessel as required by the Sales and Use Tax Law, together with penalty, except as specified. Existing law requires the department to transmit all collections of use tax and penalty to the State Board of Equalization. This bill would require, in addition, that the department determine all local use taxes the applicant is responsible to pay by specific address data provided by the applicant, and where the vehicle or vessel is to be registered. The bill would require the department to transmit the tax area codes and the amount of local use tax and penalty collections attributable to those tax area codes to the board. This bill would require the board to allocate the use taxes transmitted by the department to the jurisdiction where the purchaser registers the purchased vehicle or vessel by the tax area code data provided to the board by the department. This bill would declare the intent of the Legislature that the department and the board administer the provisions relating to registration of vehicles and vessels and identification of off-highway vehicles for these purposes in a manner that ensures that applicable local sales taxes and local transaction and use taxes are collected and then remitted to the specific jurisdiction where the vehicle or vessel is registered.

Existing law makes it a crime and specifies terms of imprisonment for assault on a peace officer or firefighter when the person knows or reasonably should know that the person is a peace officer or firefighter engaged in the performance of his or her duties. Existing law specifies various terms of imprisonment depending on whether the assault was committed with a deadly weapon that is not a firearm, a firearm, or one of a specified type of firearm, including machineguns and assault weapons. This bill would make these provisions applicable to an assault on an emergency medical technician when the person knows or reasonably should know that the person is an emergency medical technician engaged in the performance of his or her duties. By increasing the penalty for a crime, this bill would 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.

This measure would commend Muslim Americans for their economic, political, and cultural impact on California and the United States. This measure would call upon Members of the United States Congress to respect the First Amendment, and to speak out against and reject efforts to monitor mosques, efforts to police and profile Muslim Americans, and efforts to prohibit Muslims from immigrating to the United States, and to speak out against and reject any efforts to pursue an immigration policy based on religion.

This measure would recognize May 2016 as National Mental Health Awareness Month in California to enhance public awareness of mental illness.

The measure would urge the Members of Congress to work to recognize Mexican American families' needs to visit family members in Mexico and increase commerce between our nations by reducing border delays through a more open border and to speak out against and to reject efforts to build a wall along the United States-Mexico border.

This measure would recognize Nowrūz, the Persian New Year celebration.

This measure would recognize the month of April 2016 as Citrus Strong Month for the purpose of celebrating California's vibrant citrus industry and the benefits it provides to the state's environment, economy, and people, and to affirm that California is citrus strong.