Talking California Tax.

• Author: Williams, Leonard W.
• Position: Brief Article

Highlights From CalCPA's TaxTalk Listserve

A benefit of CalCPA membership is the TaxTalk listserve where members post tax-related questions usually phrased as: "Has anyone seen or dealt with (insert topic of choice here)?" After reading the query, listserve members who have something to contribute will respond. If the subject isn't interesting to a member, the individual deletes the e-mail and goes on with life.

Following are some California tax issues recently discussed on TaxTalk:

Limited Partnerships

Must limited partners be given a copy of the partnership's tax return?

This discussion took place Feb. 7 with the following results: California Corporations Code Sec. 15634(b)(2) appears only to require that a copy of the return be made available to limited partners if they ask for it.

SDI for Self-Employed Individuals

Although this is reasonably widely known, many TaxTalk members didn't seem to know that it is possible for self-employed people to obtain short-term disability insurance for themselves via State Disability Insurance. A March 28 reply to a member's question explains the procedure: go to http://www.edd.ca.gov, select For Small Businesses and then select DI Elective Coverage. Here, you'll find an explanation of the coverage and an application to download.

Value-Added Services

One listserve member routinely searches for abandoned property for clients, and tells the story of how doing so mollified a client's complaint about the fee. The client was complaining about the fee for doing estate work, until the CPA found a $100,000 bond for the estate via the abandoned property search. For unclaimed California property: https://scoweb.sco.ca.gov/scoup/inquiry/index.html. For property by address or parcel number: http://www.caltitle.com/. The ultimate weapon, with many databases: http://www.merlindata.com.

Corporations--Dissolve or Die?

A widely held view when it's time to end a corporation is: "Don't dissolve the corporation, just quit filing and let it die." TaxTalk members have debated the efficacy of this advice, with no single view prevailing.

The FTB is going after some of the owners of those "dead" corporations, and trying to hit them up for the $800 minimum tax plus penalties for non-filing. Two TaxTalk tales of woe cited one assessment for more than $6,000 and another for more than $12,000.

Part of the TaxTalk discussion has centered around whether or not the FTB could pierce the corporate shield and collect those taxes...