A local medical cannabis provider is challenging a penalty in the tax code, designed to close loopholes sought by illegal drug traffickers.
Peter Hecht reports in the Sacramento Bee: “In the case of Canna Care, the IRS has refused to accept $2.6 million in business deductions for employee salaries, rent and other costs after auditing 2006, 2007 and 2008 federal tax returns for the north Sacramento dispensary. However, the IRS did allow the dispensary, which handles about $2 million in medical marijuana transactions a year, to deduct the costs of the marijuana itself.”
“The IRS has used the Reagan-era tax code, known as 280E, to seek tax penalties against numerous California dispensaries under the argument that their business expenses constitute support of drug-trafficking operations.”
A national drug policy reform advocacy group has pulled its 2014 effort to legalize weed in California.
From the Los Angeles Times’ Maria L. La Ganga: “Signature-gathering efforts for at least two additional pot measures are circulating, but they do not appear to have the high-profile financial backing needed. So the coalition's decision makes it less likely that marijuana will be legalized in California in the near future.”
Authors of ballot initiatives have taken a lesson from the legal missteps of Prop 8’s backers.
John Myers reports for News10: “2013's end to the long legal fight over the state's ban on gay marriages left everyone wondering whether laws written by voters will simply wither and die if elected officials refuse to mount a legal defense.”
“Now, proponents of controversial measures are scrambling to find some way – any way – to legally defend an initiative should it win over voters… but not the state's top elected officials.”
Tom Steyer, a liberal billionaire from the Bay Area, is bracing for a year of heavy campaign spending across the country.
From the New York Times’ Nicholas Confessore: “In early February, Mr. Steyer gathered two dozen of the country’s leading liberal donors and environmental philanthropists to his 1,800-acre ranch in Pescadero, Calif. — which raises prime grass-fed beef — to ask them to join his efforts. People involved in the discussions say Mr. Steyer is seeking to raise $50 million from other donors to match $50 million of his own.”
“The money would move through Mr. Steyer’s fast-growing, San Francisco-based political apparatus into select 2014 races.”
Students are applying for financial aid in record numbers to ease the expense of higher education.
Loretta Kalb in the Sacramento Bee: “Over the last six school years, the number of California residents filing the federal financial aid application jumped nearly 74 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Education. Some local colleges saw even higher increases, such as an 81 percent rise among California State University, Sacramento, applicants.”
Nine charter schools fail to meet CalPERS membership requirements.
Ed Mendel writes in CalPensions: “The association said the California Public Employees Retirement System is the only public pension system in the nation to deny membership on the basis of an IRS rule, proposed in 2011, that may still be several years away from final adoption.”
San Diego County’s water authorities are prepared for drought-induced calls for conservation.
Lisa Halverstadt in the Voice of San Diego: “The water agency’s board did vote Thursday to begin urging cities and agencies that rely on it to usher in voluntary belt-tightening. But that move is far less drastic than the 20 percent cuts the governor urged last month.”
Covered California’s mass marketing geared toward a Hispanic audience has missed the mark.
From April Dembosky for KQED: “Ramirez says another problem is that all the early TV ads end with a web address for Covered California — no phone number or physical address. She says that completely misses how Hispanics like to shop, especially for a complicated product like health insurance.”
A Santa Rosa man sold the most expensive Lego piece ever.
Martin Espinoza writes in the Press Democrat: "It was about 12:30 p.m. Sunday and Andre Hurley, 20, of Roosevelt pulled out a black bank bag that contained $15,000."
"For his part, Caleb Raff, the owner of The Brick Hutt Lego shop in Santa Rosa, pulled out of his jeans pocket a small, one-of-a-kind item weighing exactly 3 troy ounces — the Platinum Avohkii Mask of Light, from Lego's discontinued Bionicle line."
"The transaction, eight months in the works, went down in only a few minutes and is believed to involve the most expensive Lego piece ever sold."