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California Continues to Challenge Economic Substance and Business Purpose

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In Matter of Gatewood Corp, OTA Case No. 19105425 (July 3, 2024), the California Office of Tax Appeals (“OTA”) concluded that Gatewood Corporation’s (“Gatewood”) transfer of stock did not entitle it to a $10 million deduction because the transaction lacked economic substance and was for the purpose of tax avoidance, resulting in $831,398 additional tax.  The California Franchise Tax Board (“FTB”) conceded a $332,559 non-economic substance transaction (“NEST”) penalty that it had originally imposed. In…

California Data Extraction Bill Advances in the Senate

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The California legislature is proposing a 7.25% tax on “data extraction transactions in the state” through Senate Bill (“SB”) 1327. If enacted, the bill would target businesses that monetize data extracted from users (e.g., social media companies, large search engines, online retailers, etc.). “Data extraction transaction” means: “(A) A taxpayer sells user information or access to users to advertisers” and“(B) The taxpayer engages in a barter by providing services to a user in full or partial…

Finding the Market Through the Looking Glass: California Issues Sales Factor Sourcing Guidance

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California’s long-anticipated market-based sourcing “guidance” is finally out. Legal Ruling No. 2022-01 provides the Franchise Tax Board’s take on how to find the market in certain business-to-business sales. Though the guidance emphasizes that a seller should look to where its direct customer receives the benefit of sales of services, it keeps with current market-based sourcing trends amongst states and directs taxpayers to source such receipts based on the location of the taxpayer’s customer’s customer. The…

“Majority” Rules: California Court of Appeal Rules that Supermajority not Needed to Pass Voter Initiative Tax Measures

By 7 Mins Read

In City & County of San Francisco v. All Persons Interested in the Matter of Proposition C, Dkt. A158645 (Cal. App., June 30, 2020), the California Court of Appeal upheld Proposition C—a voter initiative that created a new local business tax in San Francisco.  The court upheld the initiative that was enacted by a simple majority of electors.  This ruling answers a question that was been heavily debated since the California Supreme Court’s decision in California Cannabis Coalition v. City of Upland, 3 Cal. 5th 924 (Cal. 2017).  That is, do special taxes proposed by voter initiative require a supermajority of voters to pass?  This decision expressly narrows the supermajority requirement to only those tax measures proposed directly by local governments and will likely trigger more tax initiatives proposed and passed by citizen groups.

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