Tax Law

WASHINGTON - The battle over President Obama's landmark healthcare law arrived at the Supreme Court as justices began three days of oral arguments, quickly making clear they are ready to rule on the politically charged question of whether the government can require all Americans to have health insurance by 2014. Outside, where spectators had been lining up since Friday for the few available seats inside the court, protesters, partisans and even a Republican presidential candidate gathered.

SACRAMENTO - You might think a tax law that rewards companies for killing California jobs and resurrecting them in another state would be dumped. Very quickly. Especially if it also rewards them for selling off property here and rebuilding elsewhere. Or, put another way, if the law provides a tax incentive not to hire or invest in California in the first place. You'd repeal it. A no-brainer. Makes no sense, except for the companies using the loophole while profiting from selling their products here in the nation's largest consumer market.

QUESTION: Have you ever come across any figures that estimate just how much time we taxpayers waste every year preparing our income tax returns? And does anyone really think tax reform is going to bring the preparation time down?--E.I. ANSWER: Runzheimer International, a Wisconsin consulting firm that specializes in cost-of-living data, estimates that the average American taxpayer spends 22 hours a year preparing tax forms.

The Supreme Court's opening day of arguments on the healthcare law will not focus on whether the Affordable Care Act is constitutional. Instead, the justices will consider whether the legal challenge to it has arrived too soon. The problem is the Anti-Injunction Act, which dates to 1867. It says, "No suit for the purpose of restraining the assessment or collection of any tax shall be maintained in any court by any person. " How does this figure in the healthcare case? It could block a suit against this key part of the healthcare law if it imposes a tax. The law seems to say that no one can sue over a tax provision until he or she has paid the tax. How is the Affordable Care Act a tax law?

QUESTION: I recently heard a savings and loan association advertising a loan that I've never heard of before: an HEL. Do you know what it is? --C. E. ANSWER: HEL is short for home equity loan. This type of loan--a form of second mortgage--isn't new. But its popularity has been rekindled with the enactment of the 1986 tax reform bill.

The Internal Revenue Service had a moment of clarity Tuesday and backed off from its plan to crack down on personal use of office cellphones -- sort of. Just last week, the agency stirred up a hornets' nest of bad publicity by announcing it would ramp up enforcement of a long-standing -- and largely ignored -- federal law requiring that personal calls made on company cellphones be taxed as income.

Joseph D. Peeler, one of the first Los Angeles attorneys to specialize in tax law and a former board chairman of the Claremont Colleges Graduate Center, has died at 96. A spokesman for the law firm of Musick, Peeler & Garrett, which he helped found, said Peeler, a 1920 graduate of Harvard Law School, died Oct. 15 in Los Angeles. Peeler would have graduated from law school earlier, had World War I not intervened.

Twenty-two California real estate executives recently met in Washington with the state's congressional delegation to urge changes in the 1986 tax law. Frederick Gaylord, president of McClellan Cruz Gaylord & Associates, and the only architect among 100 attendees, said that the group's principal objection was that developers can no longer deduct costs of one project from rents received on another.

Tax reform is long overdue, and the new law taking effect next month is doubtless a positive development. It will simplify our Byzantine tax code, redeploying many bright minds currently busy finding new ways for us to dodge taxes into more productive areas, such as helping U.S. industry compete in world markets. More important, it will restore the tax system to its original purpose--raising revenue for the government, not furthering social and economic causes championed by Congress.

The American public is highly skeptical of the sweeping tax bill that President Reagan signed into law today, a new survey indicates. Nineteen percent said they favor it, 16% are opposed and 65% have no opinion. "Americans and Their Money 1986," sponsored by MONEY magazine and released today, also shows Americans have gone considerably deeper into debt this last year and many blame Reagan, although they do not believe life would be any better under a Democratic administration.

The Supreme Court justices, beginning an epic debate over the Obama administration's healthcare law, gave no sign Monday they are inclined to put off a constitutional ruling on the legislation's mandate that all Americans have health insurance by 2014. Instead, the justices in their comments and questions said they did not see a 19th century tax law as a legal barrier to ruling this year on challenges to the healthcare measure. Under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, those who do not have basic health insurance in 2014 must pay a penalty on their tax return to be filed in April 2015.

The U.S. Supreme Court opened its historic session Monday to debate the constitutionality of President Obama's healthcare law. For the first time in decades, the court has set aside six hours of argument - most cases are limited to one hour - over three days. On Monday the justices started by handing down opinions before delving into 90 minutes of argument. But today's arguments do not focus on whether the Affordable Care Act is constitutional. Instead, the justices are considering whether the legal challenge to it has arrived too soon.

The window is closing rapidly on one of the most important tax-relief provisions enacted by Congress during the housing crisis to help financially strapped homeowners. Although the 2007 law that allows taxpayers to exclude from income the amount of debt that is forgiven or canceled by their lenders doesn't expire until Dec. 31, it's likely to take every bit of the next 11 months for financially troubled homeowners to persuade their banks to either foreclose or allow their houses to be sold for less than they are worth.

The release of Mitt Romney's federal tax returns on Tuesday may not provide dramatic new insight into his finances, but it is sure to fuel the increasingly high-decibel debate about economic disparity and tax fairness that has overtaken this year's presidential contest and repeatedly tripped up the Republican presidential hopeful. The former Massachusetts governor has revealed in financial disclosure forms in the past that he is worth as much as $250 million, but he has never released tax returns that reveal how much money he makes each year - or how much he pays in taxes.

Amazon.com Inc. will change the way it does business, at least in California, now that Gov. Jerry Brown has signed into law a bill that requires the giant Internet retailer and certain out-of-state online merchants to collect sales taxes on purchases by Californians. Starting next Sept. 15, Amazon and many other Internet retailers will lose their ability to offer essentially a savings to customers by skipping the levy of 7.25% or more, which bricks-and-mortar stores and other merchants must collect.

The California Legislature may finally have ended its long-running battle with Amazon.com over the collection of taxes. An eleventh-hour deal in Sacramento will delay for a year a new state law requiring online retailers to collect taxes from California shoppers. In exchange for the delay, Amazon has pledged to comply with the law once it becomes effective. The deal will cost the state something in the short term, but it averts a fight at the ballot box and some unseemly maneuvering in the state capital.

Jimmy Swaggart's ministry in Baton Rouge, La., has acknowledged that the evangelist's endorsement of Pat Robertson's presidential candidacy in 1986 violated federal tax law.

Here are some of the changes in state tax law for 2001 returns: * Solar energy system credit: The state now offers a credit for people who purchase and install a solar energy system. For 2001 through 2003, the credit is equal to the lesser of 15% of the net price paid for the system, or $4.50 per rated watt of generating capacity. See FTB Form 3508 for details.

State lawmakers escalated their war with Amazon.com Inc. on Thursday with a fresh attack aimed at the Internet giant's refusal to collect taxes on its sales, which a new law requires. The legislative move would halt Amazon's campaign to put a referendum on the June ballot asking voters to overturn the state's Internet sales tax law, which took effect July 1. In a bit of legislative legerdemain, the state Senate Appropriations Committee took the language of that law, tweaked it and put it into a so-called urgency bill.