A few months ago the liberal dominated election law email discussion list I subscribe to was agog that a rogue group of IRS auditors had initiated five “examinations” of contributors to Section 501 (c)(4) nonprofit advocacy groups to see if they had paid “gift tax” on the contributions. Contributions to groups like the National Rifle Association, a c4, are not deductible, and generally not taxed, but there is some funky language in the Federal tax code that could be interpreted to mean a tax would have to be paid on the amount of a gift over $13,000 to a c4. Of course, c4s are also sometimes referred to by lazy MSM reporters as “shadowy groups” that don’t have to disclose their donors and that can engage in candidate related communications just short of express advocacy near an election……

I advised my clients not to worry, I didn’t see the examinations as a full scale assault against activities such as critizing the performance of elected officials, which is protected by the First Amendment. I did not read into the examinations that the Obama Administration was launching an attack on public… Read More

The “Qualified Purchasers Program” was created by the State Legislature, when it approved Assembly Bill X4 18 in 2009. I was serving as a Senator at the time and voted against the legislation. I continue to believe this new use tax collection program is a costly mistake.

To date BOE has identified more than 500,000 businesses as “qualified purchasers” and has automatically registered many of them with a “use tax” account. A qualified purchaser is defined as a service enterprise with more than $100,000 in gross receipts per calendar year that is not already registered with the Board of Equalization.

Most people are understandably confused about ‘use tax.’” The use tax applies to all Californians when you purchase items from a retailer who is not located in California and not registered to remit tax to California. Prior to the creation of the Qualified Purchaser Program, there were already two different ways for Californians to report use tax—(1) BOE Form 79b and (2) a dedicated line on state income tax forms.

My review of this new… Read More

Having participated in, and covered politics here in California for well over two decades, I have seen a lot of potentially game-changing news stories. If you do nothing else today, you need to sit down and spend about eight minutes watching this stunning and explosive Fox News (Channel 11 in Los Angeles) news story on City Councilwoman (and ersatz Congresswoman) Janice Hahn’s involvement with and support of a controversial program that has the City of Los Angeles “hiring” gang members, many of them violent criminals (rape, assault, and more…) to interface with other gang members to perform some supposedly desirous “intervention” — seriously.

You have to watch this — it goes from stunning and amazing to downright explosive when, mid story, the reporter starts to talk about the cease and desist letter sent from Janice Hahn’s attorneys to try and stop this reporter and Fox 11 from running this story.

With only five days until the election, Janice Hahn has to pray that the general voting population does not see this news story. In my opinion, this piece would not only cause swing voters to go against Hahn, but… Read More

I don’t fit neatly into a box. I am a conservative Republican who doesn’t raise taxes and votes to cut nearly every bit of government spending I can find. But, I am against the wars in Afghanistan and Libya, think we should cut defense spending, support legalizing internet gambling, sponsor a lot of bills to prevent abuse of animals, want pristine, clean oceans and believe we need some government support of home mortgages. No, that is not a box.

For those of you who don’t know my background, I am a native Californian raised by two very conservative and politically active parents. “We were Taft Republicans”, my mother often told me to make sure I understood that Dwight Eisenhower was way too moderate for them. The last Democrat I voted for was Sam Yorty for Mayor of Los Angeles in the 1970s. I think he later changed parties. I’m about as Republican as you get.

But, my ideology guides my thinking. It does not replace it. I believe that this job is about solving problems. And, there is never only one prescription to right every wrong. Napoleon Bonaparte was certainly the most brilliant military strategist of the 19th century and… Read More

Prior to the passage of Proposition 26 last year, because of a court decision, many revenue streams approved by the legislature that you or I would call a tax, were instead called a “fees” (when there is a nexus between where the revenues are coming from, and what that money is being spent on). Using the nexus “loophole” a great number of taxes were passed, as under this scheme, a “fee” only required a simple majority vote, not the two-thirds vote required for a tax increase. Proposition 26 slammed shut this loophole, and so all taxes are actually considered taxes, and take a two-thirds vote of the legislature to enact.

Enter into the picture Assembly Bill 291, authored by liberal Democrat Assemblyman Wieckowski. This legislation has to do with a tax that hits primarily gas station owners – where every owner of an underground petroleum storage tank is required to pay a per-gallon fee that goes into an Underground Storage Tank Cleanup Trust Fund. While it is a bit complicated to go through the formula for computing the current per-gallon… Read More

I just read over on the Sacramento Bee website that apparently State Senate President Darrell Steinberg is talking about moving forward with some sort of “pension reform” proposal from the Democrats. Given that Capitol Democrats are a wholly owned subsidiary of the state’s public employee unions, it’s no wonder that the provisions thrown out by Steinberg address some egregious problems with the current system (spiking, etc) — but there is no “meat on the bones” in terms of the legislature substantially reducing the amount of money that goes to new employees, and he is rather unequivocal that he will support no proposal to reduce future year benefits of current state employees.

It is so clear that the agenda of Steinberg and his liberal colleagues is to try to pass “window dressing” faux reforms to try and convince California voters that the pension issue has been dealt with — when in reality the unfordable defined benefit pensions will continue unabated.

If you really want to reform the retirement system for California ands its political subdivisions, you need to do two things. The first is work… Read More

Happy New Year!

Yes, it’s not January, but when the clock struck midnight on July 1 the state began the new fiscal year. That’s why so much has been said of late about the state budget; for the first time in a long time, the legislature actually has a budget in place by the start of the new budget year.

It was not a pretty thing getting here, and the budget is not a pretty thing to see.

First, the good news: Gov. Brown and the legislative Democrats finally agreed with Republicans about burdensome new taxes being unnecessary. Republicans have long counseled against the governor’s proposed almost $60 billion in new taxes because those taxes would have been a significant burden on hardworking families and a drag on our economy. The governor’s tax plan was precisely the wrong thing to do in the middle of a very fragile recovery. In addition, the tax plan would not have solved the state’s long term problems, as the governor’s budget did not even pretend to put those increased and burdensome taxes towards debt reduction or other worthwhile things. Instead, the taxes were actually just to fund a 27 percent increase in state… Read More

Ever since last week’s vote on the state budget, I have seen Democrats and many friends in the Main Stream Media (especially columnists and opinion-page writers) working overtime to diminish the substantive public policy victory achieved by Republicans as they withheld the votes that would have been required to raise California’s income, sales and car taxes. Because of the unity of Republicans on behalf of California taxpayers, who are amongst the highest taxed in the nation, billions of dollars in taxes that were billed as “temporary” have now ended. Because of Republicans, and despite Democrats, working Californians will now get to keep more of their hard-earned dollars to help balance their very stretched family or individual budgets. Because Republicans stuck together, the plans of Governor Brown and legislative Democrats to hit Californians with nearly $60 billion in higher taxes over the next four years have been foiled. This, by any measure, is a victory plain and simple. Especially in a town where the pressures to… Read More