California Minimum Wage for 2008 Increases to $8.00 Per Hour

As mentioned here last year, California's minimum wage increased to $8.00 per hour, effective January 1st, 2008. The 2008 rate represents a 6.7% increase over the old (2007) minimum wage, which was $7.50 per hour.

Some employees are exempt from the minimum wage law.

Others are covered by a higher wage law: San Francisco increased its minimum wage to $9.36, also effective January 1, 2008.

The federal minimum wage for those employees not covered by state or local minimum wage laws, remains at $5.85, until July 24, 2008, at which time it will increase to $6.55, and then $7.24 a year later.

Updated California work place posters for employers can be found here: http://www.dir.ca.gov/wpnodb.html

City of Los Angeles Business License Tax Returns

City of Los Angeles Business License Tax Returns are due by the end of February of the year following the subject tax year. There are several exemptions, the most important of which being, that for businesses that register and file their tax returns on time, there is no tax. So it is extremely important to file, or have your accountant file, the return on time.

Online filing is available for renewals only on the City of Los Angeles Office of Finance web site: https://latax.lacity.org/laweb/

2008 Standard Mileage Rate

The IRS' standard mileage rate for calendar year 2008 business miles has been increased to 50.5 cents per mile driven, up from 48.5 cents per mile in 2007.

See below for more complete information:

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service today issued the 2008 optional standard mileage rates used to calculate the deductible costs of operating an automobile for business, charitable, medical or moving purposes.

Beginning Jan. 1, 2008, the standard mileage rates for the use of a car (including vans, pickups or panel trucks) will be:

50.5 cents per mile for business miles driven;
19 cents per mile driven for medical or moving purposes; and
14 cents per mile driven in service of charitable organizations.
The new rate for business miles compares to a rate of 48.5 cents per mile for 2007. The new rate for medical and moving purposes compares to 20 cents in 2007. The rate for miles driven in service of charitable organizations has remained the same.

The standard mileage rate for business is based on an annual study of the fixed and variable costs of operating an automobile; the standard rate for medical and moving purposes is based on the variable costs as determined by the same study. Runzheimer International, an independent contractor, conducted the study for the IRS.

The mileage rate for charitable miles is set by law.

A taxpayer may not use the business standard mileage rate for a vehicle after using any depreciation method under the Modified Accelerated Cost Recovery System (MACRS), after claiming a Section 179 deduction for that vehicle, for any vehicle used for hire or for more than four vehicles used simultaneously.

IRS Announces 2007 Standard Mileage Rates, irs.gov, posted November 27, 2007

New 2008 California Notary Block

Effective today, January 1, 2008, all legal documents to be notarized in California must use the following notary block:

State of California
County of ___________

On ______________________ before me, (here insert name and title of the officer), personally appeared __________________ who proved to me on the basis of satisfactory evidence to be the person(s) whose name(s) is/are subscribed to the within instrument and acknowledged to me that he/she/they executed the same in his/her/their authorized capacity(ies), and that by his/her/their signature(s) on the instrument the person(s), or the entity upon behalf of which the person(s) acted, executed the instrument.

I certify under PENALTY OF PERJURY under the laws of the State of California that the foregoing paragraph is true and correct.

WITNESS my hand and official seal.

Signature ____________________________ (Seal)

Reference: California Civil Code Section 1189
California notary block PDF format; California Secretary of State

California power of attorneys also now require a thumb print upon execution.

California EDD Free Tax Compliance Seminars for Employers

The California Employment Development Department (CA EDD), offers free seminars for California employers, to assist them in complying with payroll, unemployment insurance, and disability reporting and deductions for their employees. For many, your business attorney, accountant, and payroll service will handle these issues for you; for those without such assistance, these seminars may be a good place to learn the basic of complying with the numerous laws applicable to any employer.

Some upcoming Southern California seminars are as follows:

Avoiding State Payroll Reporting Errors Tax Seminar, Huntington Beach 1/17/08;

Employee or Independent Contractor Tax Seminar, Anaheim 12/20/07, Huntington Beach 1/1/7/08, Santa Fe Springs 1/4/08;

How to Manage Unemployment Insurance Costs Tax Seminar, Goleta 12/5/07, Oxnard 1/25/08;

State Basic Payroll Tax Seminar, Huntington Beach 11/29/07, Santa Fe Springs 12/6/07;

State Payroll Workship Tax Seminar, Goleta 1/29/08, Huntington, Beach 12/19/07, Oxnard 1/8/08, Santa Fe Springs 11/28/07.

For a full list of EDD seminars offered throughout the year, see
http://www.edd.ca.gov/Payroll_Tax_Seminars/

Bankrate.com Survey: 76% Believe Everyone Should Have a Will, But 57% Don't Have One

Even though three-quarters of our poll respondents (76 percent) believe that everyone should have a will, a whopping 57 percent of Americans don't have one themselves.

Parents of kids younger than 18 make an even poorer showing: 67 percent don't have a will, despite the fact that 88 percent of parents believe wills are an important way to appoint guardians....

This tendency to procrastinate is common to people of all education levels and walks of life, says Marshall Jones, an attorney and accredited estate planner at RMJ Family Wealth Planning in West Palm Beach, Fla.

"It's not surprising that most people don't have a will," he says. "Most attorneys don't have a will.

"Before I was in law school, the chairman of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee died. He was a wealthy man in his own right and his committee was responsible for tax legislation. They found his will in his desk drawer ... unsigned. His family paid millions more in taxes because he did not complete his planning. Not much has changed since then. Many successful people plan every thing else in their lives except their estate plan."

Americans' words and deeds about wills at odds, Bankrate.com, November 19, 2007

Billionaries fight estate tax repeal

Billionaire Warren Buffet, one of the world's richest men who, critics note, will personally avoid the payment of most or all death taxes on his estate by giving most of it away to charity, went to Congress today to encourage Democrats to retain the estate tax, against the wishes of the Bush Administration and small business groups:

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett urged senators Wednesday to reject calls by the Bush administration and business groups to permanently repeal the estate tax.

"A progressive and meaningful estate tax is needed to curb the movement of a democracy toward plutocracy," Buffett, the chairman of Berkshire Hathaway told the Senate Finance Committee.

Buffett has long opposed efforts to repeal the tax.

Under the tax-cut package signed by President Bush in 2001, the exemption on the estate tax increases each year, culminating in full repeal in 2010. But the legislation expires at the end of 2010, and estate tax levels return to their pre-2001 levels -- a top tax rate of 55% on inheritances of more than $1 million -- in 2011.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., said he supports full repeal, but that such a measure doesn't have adequate support. Baucus, noting that less than 1% of families are now subject to the tax, urged lawmakers and others to craft measures designed to exempt most family-owned farms and small businesses.
Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the committee's senior Republican, repeated a call for full repeal.

Grassley said the prospect of family members being forced to sell a business to meet a tax bill shows that the estate tax is fatally flawed from a technical standpoint.
"Instead of the free market determining when assets are bought or sold, the death tax makes that determination," Grassley said....

Buffett urges Senate to oppose estate-tax repeal, CBS Marketwatch, November 14, 2007

See also: Senate Plan to Repeal Inheritance Tax Fails, Washington Post, June 9, 2006