Existing law requires the State Board of Forestry and Fire Protection, on or before September 1, 2011, to adopt emergency regulations to establish a fire prevention fee in an amount not to exceed $150 to be charged on each structure on a parcel that is within a state responsibility area, as defined, and requires that the fire prevention fee be adjusted annually using prescribed methods. Existing law requires the State Board of Equalization to collect the fire prevention fees, as prescribed, commencing with the 2011–12 fiscal year. Existing law requires that the fee be due and payable 30 days from the date of assessment by the State Board of Equalization and allows for a petition of redetermination to filled with the department within 30 days after the fee is determined to be due. Existing law requires the order or decision upon a petition to become final 30 days after service upon the petitioner of notice of the determination. This bill would authorize a person to appeal any order of the department that denies all or part of a refund of fee, penalties, or interest to the State Board of Equalization, as provided, within 90 days after a determination by the department. The bill would require the board to reconsider the amount determined to be due and to grant the person an oral hearing, if one is so requested. The bill would require the state board to hear and determine the appeal and thereafter notify the person and the department of its determination. The bill would apply the above provisions relating to an appeal to any notice of assessment that is mailed after December 31, 2014. The bill would make other conforming changes.
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The Personal Income Tax Law authorizes various deductions in computing income that is subject to tax under that law. This bill would, for taxable years beginning on or after January 1, 2014, allow a deduction in connection with health savings accounts in conformity with federal law. In general, the deduction would be an amount equal to the aggregate amount paid in cash during the taxable year by, or on behalf of, an eligible individual, as defined, to a health savings account of that individual, as provided. This bill would, for taxable years beginning on or after January 1, 2014, also provide related conformity to that federal law with respect to the allowance of rollovers from Archer Medical Savings Accounts, health flexible spending arrangements, or health reimbursement accounts to a health savings account, and penalties in connection therewith. This bill would take effect immediately as a tax levy.
Existing law imposes weight fees on the registration of commercial motor vehicles and provides for the deposit of net weight fee revenues into the State Highway Account. Existing law provides for the transfer of certain weight fee revenues from the State Highway Account to the Transportation Debt Service Account to reimburse the General Fund for payment of debt service on general obligation bonds issued for transportation purposes. Existing law also provides for the transfer of certain weight fee revenues to the Transportation Bond Direct Payment Account for direct payment of debt service on designated bonds, which are defined to be certain transportation general obligation bonds issued pursuant to Proposition 1B of 2006. This bill, notwithstanding these provisions or any other law, effective January 1, 2016, would prohibit weight fee revenue from being transferred from the State Highway Account to the Transportation Debt Service Fund or to the Transportation Bond Direct Payment Account, and from being used to pay the debt service on transportation general obligation bonds.
The California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 designates the State Air Resources Board as the state agency charged with monitoring and regulating sources of emissions of greenhouse gases. The state board is required to adopt a statewide greenhouse gas emissions limit equivalent to the statewide greenhouse gas emissions level in 1990 to be achieved by 2020, and to adopt rules and regulations in an open public process to achieve the maximum, technologically feasible, and cost-effective greenhouse gas emissions reductions. The act authorizes the state board to include the use of market-based compliance mechanisms. Existing state board regulations require specified entities to comply with a market-based compliance mechanism beginning January 1, 2013, and require additional specified entities to comply with that market-based compliance mechanism beginning January 1, 2015. This bill instead would exempt categories of persons or entities that did not have a compliance obligation, as defined, under a market-based compliance mechanism beginning January 1, 2013, from being subject to that market-based compliance mechanism through December 31, 2020. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.
Existing law imposes an annual minimum franchise tax, except as provided, on every corporation incorporated in this state, qualified to transact intrastate business in this state, or doing business in this state. Existing law exempts a corporation that incorporates or qualifies to do business in this state from the payment of the minimum franchise tax in its first taxable year. Existing law imposes an annual tax in an amount equal to the minimum franchise tax on every limited liability company doing business in this state. In addition, existing law requires every limited liability company if the articles of organization have been accepted by, or a certificate of registration has been issued by, the Secretary of State to pay an annual tax in an amount equal to the minimum franchise tax. This bill would, for taxable years beginning on or after January 1, 2015, and before January 1, 2018, reduce that minimum franchise tax for a corporation and that annual tax for a limited liability company, as provided, that is a new veteran-owned small business, as defined, and would eliminate the tax if the business operates at a loss or ceases operation. This bill would take effect immediately as a tax levy.
The Personal Income Tax Law allows various credits against the taxes imposed by that law. This bill would, for taxable years beginning on or after January 1, 2015, and before January 1, 2020, allow a credit in an amount equal to 15% of the tuition paid or incurred during the taxable year by a taxpayer for education and training obtained by the taxpayer or a dependent of the taxpayer at a vocational institution, as defined, not to exceed $2,500 per taxable year. This bill would take effect immediately as a tax levy.
The Personal Income Tax Law conforms to specified provisions of the federal Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act of 2007, relating to the exclusion of the discharge of qualified principal residence indebtedness, as defined, from a taxpayer's income if that debt is discharged after January 1, 2007, and before January 1, 2010, as provided. The federal Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 extended the operation of those provisions to debt that is discharged before January 1, 2013. This bill would extend the operation of the exclusion of the discharge of qualified principal residence indebtedness to debt that is discharged on or after January 1, 2013, and before January 1, 2014. This bill would take effect immediately as a tax levy.
(1) Existing law establishes the Agricultural Career Technical Education Incentive Program, which requires the Superintendent of Public Instruction to award a grant, for the purpose of purchasing or leasing agricultural career technical education equipment, to an applicant school district that operates an agricultural career technical education program and that meets specified requirements. Existing law requires the governing board of each school district to annually adopt or update a local control and accountability plan that contains specified information. This bill would continuously appropriate the sum of $4,134,000 in each fiscal year beginning with the 2015–16 fiscal year from the General Fund to the State Department of Education for purposes of funding the Agricultural Career Technical Education Incentive Program. The bill would require the Superintendent to award a grant to a school district that, in addition to meeting the existing requirements, demonstrates how the expenditure of the grant funds will be consistent with its adopted local control and accountability plan. The bill would also express various findings and declarations of the Legislature relating to agricultural career technical education. (2) Funds appropriated by this bill would be applied toward the minimum funding requirements for school districts and community college districts imposed by Section 8 of Article XVI of the California Constitution.
Existing law requires the state to have the primary financial responsibility for preventing and suppressing fires in areas that the State Board of Forestry and Fire Protection has determined are state responsibility areas, as defined. Existing law requires the State Board of Equalization to collect a fire prevention fee not to exceed $150 to be charged on each structure on a parcel that is within a state responsibility area. Existing law specifies that the fire prevention fee determined to be due by the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection is due and payable at the time it becomes final, and imposes a specified civil penalty for each 30-day period during which the fee remains unpaid. This bill would eliminate the specified civil penalty imposed for unpaid fire prevention fees.
This measure would designate the Mission Avenue bridge at Interstate 5 in the City of Oceanside as the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Bridge. The measure would request the Department of Transportation to determine the cost for appropriate signs showing this special designation and, upon receiving donations from nonstate sources covering that cost, to erect those signs.