Good Morning this is attorney Sam Brockman with Brotman law here at San Diego and the title of this video blog post is California a B 147 and its impact on Amazon sellers so I’ve been getting a lot of questions over the last two weeks about the proposed legislation in California which is California a B 147 and what it means for Amazon sellers and there has been a great amount of confusion with our current clients with some of the prospective clients that called us and then generally in the community about what the bill is and what it means so I finally had an opportunity to sell out last night and read through the whole bill and so I wanted to share some of my thoughts on what the bill proposes to do what it does not do and then the ultimate impact on the Amazon community as a whole so California a B 147 is a direct response by California to the Wayfarer decision and what that means is the very first thing that a B 147 does is it expands.
video-blog
How Does California Locate Taxpayers and Their Assets?
So this is actually a very interesting subject and something that we as tax practitioners talk about quite frequently. So the first way that California tracks you is through any filings that you do with the state. So for example, everybody in California files a tax return with the Franchise Tax Board and you have an address on them. So they use the address based on your FTB returns and the addresses that are submitted to third parties like banks and credit institutions and things like that to track your current information. Number two is they pull your credit report. So the same credit report that you can pull through Experian or TransUnion the state of California has access to and they can use it to locate taxpayers and their assets. Number three is California gets data from the IRS. So the IRS has a much more expanded database of taxpayer information and particularly for taxpayers that have moved out of California or might be in other places. The federal government is often a much more reliable and more accurate source of information.
Will the IRS Take Payments?
If You have a question regarding if IRS will charge you, then do watch this video to know more about it.
How Much Is the IRS Going to Ask Me to Pay Per Month?
IRS Form 433 ABS you can look at the expenses and the expenses are things.
How Does an IRS Payment Plan Work?
So an IRS payment plan and negotiating one is both an art and a science. Let’s talk about the science side of things. So IRS payment plans start based on a formula and the formula looks at the available assets that a taxpayer has and the IRS determines whether the taxpayer could full pay or substantially pay the liability based on the value of those assets. So for example if you owe the government $50,000 and you have $50,000 sitting in your bank account, the IRS is going to want that absent some good reason. So they go through your expenses, they look at your house, in certain cases they look at the equity in your house, can you borrow against any assets, things like that. If they determine that you don’t have sufficient equity in your assets, then it becomes an income and expense analysis they look at your various sources of income they usually average it over a three-month period and then they’ll look at your ordinary and necessary living expenses. So the real kicker with this is the term ordinary and necessary. The IRS has standards and they’re based on both national standards and local living standards on how much things should cost. So like for example, with your housing the IRS has an average based on where you live of how much housing is in your area. If you go to.
If I Owe Money to the IRS How Do They Look at Credit Cards?
The IRS considers necessary they won’t write in minimum credit card payments and will require you to pay a monthly installment.
I Owe Money to the IRS, How Will the IRS Look at Educational Expenses?
The IRS considers those children to be adults.
If I Owe Money to the IRS Are They Going to Take My House?
The IRS is playbook so generally speaking if you’re proactive in resolving your tax liability your house is generally safe.
Can Tax Debt Get Discharged in Bankruptcy?
This video will provide you information on the discharge of tax debt during bankruptcy.
Will the IRS Waive Interest and Penalties?
The liability so with interest interest on tax liabilities.