Articles Posted in California

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(This article originally was published by Law360 on August 21, 2019.)

The repercussions of the California Supreme Court’s August 2017 opinion in California Cannabis Coalition, et al. v. City of Upland, et al.1 continue to reverberate, leading San Francisco’s business taxpayers to wonder what practical precautions to consider.

In a February article, we analyzed the Upland opinion, the over 40-year history of California’s two-thirds supermajority voting requirement for passing local special taxes, and an introduction to the first five post-Upland litigation challenges, including San Francisco actions involving the validity of two separate Proposition C voter initiatives that passed in 2018 with a majority but not a supermajority vote. In a follow-up article last month, we provided an update on the status of these five supermajority tax challenges pending around the state, including trial court decisions made in the two San Francisco Proposition C actions.

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(This article originally was published by Law360 on July 22, 2019.)

On July 5, the San Francisco Superior Court issued a pair of rulings in favor of the city and county of San Francisco, finding that two local special taxes introduced by voter initiatives were valid even though they passed with a simple majority vote and not a two-thirds supermajority vote.

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On July 23-24, members of Pillsbury SALT will lead discussions at COST’s much anticipated state and local tax technology workshop in Foster City, Calif. This one-and-a-half day event promises to deliver in-depth state and local tax content tailored to technology businesses—everything from startups to long established companies. The varied presentations are for those new to tax and those who are tax savvy.

Pillsbury SALT members will lead discussions on a number of topics, including:

For more information and to register, please visit the event page.

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TAKEAWAYS

On April 25, 2019, California enacted comprehensive marketplace facilitator legislation. Many said last fall this would be an impossible feat given the divided constituency of the California Legislature on whether all marketplace facilitators should be treated equally for purposes of imposing California’s Sales and Use Tax law. Consider the impossible achieved. California’s sweeping Marketplace Facilitator Act, adopted under Assembly Bill (AB) 147, treats virtually all marketplaces the same.

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(This article was originally published by Law360 on April 16, 2019.)

In recent years, many have openly criticized California for its income tax litigating position involving out-of-state companies that hold passive, minority interests in pass-through entities doing business in California. The state argues these out-of-state companies are doing business in California solely by virtue of their passive, minority investment in pass-throughs that conduct business in California. The state has lost the issue twice in the last two years. Most recently in September 2018 before an administrative appellate body in a nonprecedential decision involving a 25% passive ownership interest and the other in 2017 at the California Court of Appeal in a published decision involving a 0.2% passive ownership interest.

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Pillsbury attorneys speak on a number of tax-related issues at the TEI Mergers & Acquisitions Seminar on March 7. Topics include Corporate, Sales/Use Tax, State Income Tax, Federal Income Tax, Property/Transfer Taxes, Regulatory, and Employment and Labor.

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Despite the narrow issue it originally addressed, the August 2017 decision by the California Supreme Court in California Cannabis Coal. v. City of Upland has sparked a much larger debate regarding whether local special taxes introduced by voter initiative are subject to the long-standing requirement in the California Constitution that local special taxes must be passed with a two-thirds supermajority vote by the electorate

In “The Sequel to Upland: A Calif. Supermajority Tax Showdown,” an article that originally appeared in Law360,  Robert P. Merten III and Richard E. Nielsen recap the pertinent Upland background, identify the local special taxes currently at issue and discuss an important consideration courts will need to address when deciding these cases: the over 40-year history of California’s two-thirds supermajority voting requirement for the passage of local special taxes.

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(This article was originally published by Law360 on January 15, 2019.)

The growing tension between government promises of transparency and taxpayers’ right to confidentiality is likely to continue in 2019. Although the spirit of government transparency to enhance public access is well-meaning, this lofty goal often conflicts with taxpayer confidentiality and the associated expectation of privacy. Striking the appropriate balance between these two often conflicting positions can prove difficult, as highlighted by two recent developments, namely, the Pennsylvania Board of Finance and Revenue’s push to record and publish hearings on its website and the California Office of Tax Appeals’ attempts to address concerns regarding closed hearings and sealed records.

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