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CSTC works closely with a Legislative Consultant to keep an eye on important bills that would affect taxpayers and small business owners. After pushing back the start date by one week due to COVID-19, the legislature began it’s 2021 session on January 11. They will hit the ground running with a focus on bills and policy issues related to unemployment benefits, renter relief, re-opening schools, vaccinations, the state budget, and more. Below are bills identified for monitoring for CSTC.

With the legislative session ending on September 10, the Governor has until October 10 to sign bills sent to him during the regular session. Below is the status of the remaining bills we’ve tracked this year, minus bills removed due to failure to pass the legislature. All failed bills will become two-year bills and as such, we can expect to see them again in early 2022.

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BILLS RELATING TO THE TAX PROFESSION

AB 1219 (Berman): Income taxes: Natural Heritage Preservation Tax Credit Act of 2000. Would renew the Natural Heritage Preservation Tax Credit for qualified contributions on or after January 1, 2021, and no later than June 30, 2026. The bill would take effect immediately if signed into law.
Status: Signed into law 

AB 1582 (Committee on Revenue and Taxation): Income taxes: withholding: real property sales: Katz-Harris Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights Act: report. Revises tax withholding requirements by an intermediary when the intermediary facilitates a deferred exchange of real property held for productive use or investment, for a disposition of real property that occurs on or after January 1, 2022. This bill also changes the due date of the FTB’s annual Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights report from December 1 to January 15.
Status: Signed into law 

SB 303 (Borgeas): Property taxation: transfer of base year value: disaster relief. Extends from five to seven years the time period for a taxpayer affected by a disaster to transfer their base year value to a replacement property. This bill’s extension of the time period for taxpayers to claim a base year value transfer ends on March 4, 2022, or the date the Governor terminates the COVID-19 emergency proclamation, whichever is earlier. This bill would take effect immediately upon signing.
Status: Signed into law 

BILLS RELATING TO EMPLOYERS

AB 654 (Reyes): COVID-19: exposure: notification. Clarifies and strengthens provisions enacted in 2020 relating to workplace COVID-19 exposure notifications, including: requiring employers, when giving notice to the local public health agency of a COVID-19 outbreak, to give that notice within 48 hours or one business day, whichever is later; and enacting a sunset date of January 1, 2023, on these provisions.
Status: Signed into law

AB 1003 (Lorena Gonzalez): Wage theft: grand theft. Creates a new crime for the intentional theft of wages, gratuities, or other compensation by an employer, punishable as either a felony or a misdemeanor.
Status: Signed into law 

AB 1041 (Wicks): Employment: Leave. Adds a “designated person” to the list of individuals for whom an employee may take leave to care for under state law. This bill defines “designated person” as a person identified by the employee at the time the employee requests leave or a paid sick day and allows an employer to limit the employee to one designated person per 12-month period.
Status: Did not pass 

SB 606 (Gonzalez): Workplace safety: violations of statutes: enterprise-wide violations: egregious violations. Establishes a rebuttable presumption that an employer’s written policy that violates specified health and safety regulations exists at all of an employer’s worksites and adds a definition of “egregious violation” that carries specified additional penalties.
Status: Signed into law

FEDERAL BILLS OF INTEREST

HR 3737 (Filemon): Tax-preparer Enforcement, Accountability, and Minimum Standards Act (TEAMS Act). Authorizes the Treasury Department to regulate tax return preparers, including by sanctioning preparers for incompetence and disreputable behavior and by establishing minimum competency standards.
Status as of 10/12/21: Referred to the House Ways and Means Committee in June

 

HR 4184 (Panetta): Taxpayer Protection and Preparer Proficiency Act of 2021. An almost identical bill to HR 3737, this bill also authorizes the Treasury Department to regulate tax return preparers, including by sanctions for incompetence and disreputable behavior and by establishing minimum competency standards.
Status as of 10/12/21: Referred to the House Ways and Means Committee in June