Legislature

Assembly Member Alex Lee and nine co-authors this week reintroduced legislation to tax assets of high-wealth Californians – a “wealth tax” that would apply to, but would not be limited to, art and collectibles, real property, pension funds, financial assets held offshore, farm assets, mutual funds, index funds, and stocks. The plan, contained in AB 259 and ACA 3, would tax “the activity of sustaining excessive accumulations of wealth” at a rate of 1.5 percent of “worldwide net worth” higher…

Assembly Member Jacqui Irwin is the new chair of the Assembly Revenue and Taxation Committee, Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon announced February 22. “I look forward to conducting oversight and crafting legislation that will keep California competitive while lifting up the most vulnerable,” Irwin said in a written statement. Irwin, a Democrat whose district includes Oxnard and Thousand Oaks, was first elected in 2014 after serving as the mayor of Thousand Oaks. She has chaired the Assembly Veterans Affairs Committee and…

A group of lawmakers proposed a $2.4 billion-a-year tax increase on businesses January 12, just one day after the state Assembly and Senate held their first floor sessions of the year. The tax legislation, AB 71, was introduced in skeletal form in December, and was amended this week to include specific tax increases to raise revenue for programs intended to reduce homelessness. As amended, the bill: Increases the corporate tax rate on businesses with more than $5 million in taxable…

The Senate voted 28-11 on August 30 to send SB 972 (Skinner), a CalTax-opposed bill requiring disclosure of confidential taxpayer information, to Governor Gavin Newsom despite concerns raised by the Franchise Tax Board that the bill could expose FTB members and staff to criminal liability. The bill would require the FTB to breach a taxpayer’s confidentiality rights by producing annual reports on corporate taxpayers with gross receipts of $5 billion or more. The mandated reports would be shared with the…

The Senate Governance and Finance Committee held a no-vote hearing August 3 on a union-backed proposal that would impose a large, retroactive personal income tax increase on income over $1 million (AB 1253, Santiago). The bill, which would increase California’s highest-in-the-nation top PIT rate of 13.3 percent to 16.8 percent, is not scheduled for a vote or any additional action. Under AB 1253, the rate would increase to 14.3 percent on adjusted income between $1 million and $2 million, 16.3…

The Assembly returned from its almost two-month recess May 4 and the Senate is scheduled to reconvene May 11, with several tax-related bills on their respective calendars. Both houses are implementing special procedures to reduce the potential for spreading the COVID-19 virus. One of this week’s Assembly committee hearings, for example, was held in the Assembly chambers, with lawmakers and staff seated far apart from one another. Public attendance was discouraged, but allowed for those whose body temperature was in…