Legislation I proposed to ease the burden of a lumber tax on small businesses has become law.

Assembly Bill 2031, authored by Assemblyman Brian Dahle (R-Bieber), passed the Legislature with bipartisan support and was signed by Governor Brown on September 29, 2014.

In 2012, the Legislature enacted AB 1492, which imposed a 1% assessment on lumber and engineered wood products. Unfortunately, the bill did not allow an exemption for qualified businesses that have little or no sales of wood products, causing many retailers to needlessly file returns.

AB 2031 fixes this problem by exempting businesses that sell less than $25,000 in lumber or engineered wood from paying the 1% Lumber Products Assessment. This will save nearly 1,000 businesses the hassle of separately reporting lumber sales to the Board of Equalization.

The legislation was sponsored by the State Board of Equalization and received support from the California Retailers Association, the California Forestry Association, CalTax and many small business owners.

In his… Read More

Sexual encounters often tragically occur where usually both parties are very drunk. Sexual consent isn’t thought of until the next day when regret sets in.

Yet, young men are increasingly being charged by female students and college administrators, of sexual misconduct — even when accusers cannot remember the events because of intoxication. Right or wrong, young men are subjected to a minimum of academic discipline, and many times, brought up on more formal, serious, and even criminal charges.

Apparently, there ought to be a law.

Protect… Read More

Fungible – definition – “able to replace or be replaced by another identical item; mutually interchangeable.”

On November 4th, Palo Alto voters will be asked to approve Measure B, with only a simple majority required for passage. According to a summarycompiled by theCalifornia Taxpayers Association, “2014 Local Elections,” Measure B “increases the city hotel/motel tax by 2% and extends the tax to apply to online bookings, to fund general city services.”

According to an article in the Silicon Valley Business Journal entitled “Palo Alto 2% hotel tax hike headed for November ballot,”“About $4.6 million would be generated annually through a combination of the potential tax increase and funds generated by several new hotels slated to open in the city.”

Analysis ofraw datadownloaded from the California State Controller’s website, and available for review… Read More

The back room deal between the California Grocers Association andUnited Food and Commercial Workers labor union paid off; Gov. Jerry Brown signed the bill to ban and tax plastic and paper grocery bags… despite that all types of plastic shopping bags can be recycled into new bags.

SB 270by Senators Kevin de León, D-Los Angeles Alex Padilla, D- Pacoima, and Ricardo Lara, D-Los Angeles, “prohibits stores from distributing lightweight, single-use plastic bags.” Padilla is running for Secretary of State.

Immediately after the bill signing, the American Progressive Bag Alliance announced it was preparing to gather signatures for a November 2016 ballot initiative to repeal SB 270.

Governor Jerry Brown has repeatedly said, “There will be no new taxes for the foreseeable future.” But the plastic bag ban is also a tax increase on reusable bags, and paper bags — minimum 10 cents per bag — which grocers will pocket.

I remember when plastic bags were… Read More