GSBE Business Update 07/29/2019
AB 9, as amended, Reyes. Employment discrimination: limitation of actions.
Existing law, the California Fair Employment and Housing Act, makes specified employment and housing practices unlawful, including discrimination against or harassment of employees and tenants, among others. Existing law authorizes a person claiming to be aggrieved by an alleged unlawful practice to file a verified complaint with the Department of Fair Employment and Housing within one year from the date upon which the unlawful practice occurred, unless otherwise specified.
This bill would extend the above-described period to 3 years for complaints alleging employment discrimination, as specified. The bill would specify that the operative date of the verified complaint is the date that the intake form was filed with the Labor Commissioner. The bill would make conforming changes in provisions that grant a person allegedly aggrieved by an unlawful practice who first obtains knowledge of the facts of the alleged unlawful practice after the expiration of the limitations period, as specified.
Existing law authorizes the Director of Fair Employment and Housing to bring a civil action in the name of the department on behalf of a person claiming to be aggrieved in the case of failure to eliminate an unlawful practice through conference, conciliation, mediation, or persuasion. Existing law requires the director to bring the civil action within a specified time after the filing of the complaint.
This bill would, for those purposes, define filing a complaint to mean filing an intake form with the department, and would specify that the operative date of the verified complaint relates back to the filing of the form.
This bill would prohibit its provisions from being interpreted to revive lapsed claims.
AB 520, as amended, Kalra. Public works: public subsidy.
Existing law requires that, except as specified, not less than the general prevailing rate of per diem wages, determined by the Director of Industrial Relations, be paid to workers employed on public works projects. Existing law defines “public works” to include, among other things, construction, alteration, demolition, installation, or repair work done under contract and paid for, in whole or in part, out of public funds, but exempts from that definition, among other projects, an otherwise private development project if the state or political subdivision provides, directly or indirectly, a public subsidy to the private development project that is de minimis in the context of the project.
This bill would provide that a public subsidy is de minimis if it is both less than $275,000 and less than 2% of the total project cost. The bill would specify that those provisions do not apply to a project that was advertised for bid, or a contract that was awarded before July 1, 2020.
SB 37, as amended, Skinner. Corporation taxes: tax rates.
The Corporation Tax Law imposes taxes according to or measured by net income at a rate of 8.84%, or for financial institutions, at a rate of 10.84%, as specified.
This bill would, for taxable years beginning on or after January 1, 2020, revise that rate for corporations with net income subject to taxes under that law of $10,000,000 or more to instead impose a tax rate from 10.84% to 14.84%, or for financial institutions, from 12.84% to 16.84%, based on the compensation ratio, as defined, of the corporation. The bill would increase the applicable tax rate by 50% for those taxpayers that have a specified decrease in full-time employees employed in the United States as compared to an increase in contracted and foreign full-time employees, as described. The bill would deposit the revenues derived from this tax into the General Fund, as specified, and would require those revenues to be used to offset the fiscal impact of any child tax credit and, upon appropriation by the Legislature, to support the expansions or improvements to early childhood programs and other educational programs. The bill would make these tax rates inoperative for taxable years beginning on or after January 1 of any calendar year in which the federal corporate tax rate is 35% or more.
This bill would include a change in state statute that would result in a taxpayer paying a higher tax within the meaning of Section 3 of Article XIII A of the California Constitution, and thus would require for passage the approval of 2/3 of the membership of each house of the Legislature.
This bill would take effect immediately as a tax levy.