How the California Tax Relief Plan Affects L.A. Businesses and Residents, Post-Wildfire Devastation
After the devastating wildfires brutalized parts of Los Angeles earlier this year, Governor Gavin Newsom announced that the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration (CDTFA) had automatically extended the tax filing deadline for three months for taxpayers within Los Angeles County.
This came on the heels of the state also announcing that taxpayers in Los Angeles County would be granted a postponement to October 15, 2025, to file California tax returns on 2024 income and make any tax payments that would have been due January 7, 2025, through October 15, 2025. 'California is taking greater action to continue supporting businesses that have been devastated by the Southern California wildfires,' the Governor announced. 'We are strong because of the diversity of our businesses, and we stand by them – providing relief to aid them through this difficult time.'
CDTFA will also continue to offer relief and extensions to those impacted beyond Los Angeles County upon request. In addition to extra time to file, the state can provide relief from interest and penalties and create flexible payment plans for businesses. 'We have the operational building blocks in place to make sure the government is there for all Californians. We care deeply about everyone affected, and we're making sure that our business foundation remains strong and vibrant,' said Government Operations Agency Secretary Amy Tong.
'The loss resulting from these fires is devastating for business owners who have invested so much and worked so hard to succeed. Beyond the automatic extension, we encourage taxpayers who need help with any CDTFA program to reach out to us. Our team members are here to help taxpayers navigate their way to recovery,' said CDTFA Director Nick Maduros. CDTFA's disaster relief includes:
• Extensions to file returns: CDTFA returns and payments due on or before January 31, 2025, have automatically been extended to April for Los Angeles County taxpayers whose last return was for less than $1 million in tax. This includes sales and use tax, as well as most other programs administered by CDTFA.• Additional relief from interest and penalties: Impacted business owners not subject to the automatic extension or who require additional relief are encouraged to contact CDTFA for assistance.• Copies of CDTFA tax records: Taxpayers who need to obtain copies of CDTFA tax records can receive replacements free of charge. • Help with updating account information: This could include changing an address, opening or closing a business location or obtaining a copy of a seller's permit or CDTFA-issued license.
The automatic extensions for sales and use tax returns and payments to April 30, 2025, are eligible to those taxpayers who owed less than $1 million in sales and use tax on their 2024 third quarter returns.
Annual licensing fees under the Cigarette and Tobacco Products Licensing Act and returns due under the International Fuel Tax Agreement are not extended.
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Yahoo
11 hours ago
- Yahoo
How carriers can prevent fuel fraud at the pump before it happens
Unfortunately, carriers are seeing a rise in fuel fraud and are forced to spend significant time tracking and verifying fuel expenses. Back office fuel management and International Fuel Tax Agreement (IFTA) accounting requirements mean that larger fleets spend sometimes dozens of hours per month simply reconciling fuel purchases. Rich Taute, vice president of sales and strategy at QuikQ, joined Loaded and Rolling host Thomas Wasson to talk about what technologies and tactics can prevent fuel fraud and simplify back office fuel management processes. Traditionally, most fleets provide their drivers with fuel cards to manage purchases on the road. These fuel cards are one way to simplify payments and expense accounting, but some systems are prone to abuse and exploitations. The rise in fuel fraud has led to significant losses in the past few years. 'While we have a traditional fuel card product, we're also excited to talk about our cardless solutions, especially SmartQ RFID,' Taute said. 'We've spent the last twelve months helping carriers mitigate fraud, and one of the most effective ways we've been able to combat fraud is through our RFID technology.' SmartQ RFID works similarly to the toll tags that many trucks use to be able to pass through toll stations. QuikQ utilizes that same concept with SmartQ RFID to turn on the dispenser at the fuel pump and tie each transaction to a particular asset. 'This technology is very simple and secure,' Taute said. 'In sixteen years, we've never had a single fraudulent transaction using our RFID payment instrument.' Over the past twelve months, the QuikQ operations team and finance team have been working hard in the field to get these payment instruments to carriers, and Taute says those efforts have been immensely helpful in reducing fraud for customers. 'This is a great solution for you if you've ever experienced fraud,' Taute said. 'If you haven't, you're honestly fortunate, as bad actors are actively targeting less secure payment methods.' In many documented incidents, drivers and scammers have swiped fuel cards at the pump to let other trucks refuel for a cash exchange. SmartQ RFID technology prevents that kind of instance from occurring in the first place. 'Once that RFID tag disengages from the antenna, we'll turn the dispenser off no matter if the pump is still running or not,' Taute said. 'That way, drivers can't defraud their carrier by fueling up another truck.' An ELD solution will only verify whether a truck is at the truck stop, but can't control a fuel station's pumps. 'Those solutions are safer than nothing, but only an RFID tag attached to our pump can really accurately account for fuel going into the correct asset,' Taute said. Two-factor authentication is another element of security QuikQ can provide to carriers. That authentication involves one simple step that requires the driver to verify that they stopped at a given location. 'Many of our customers have deployed that feature on fuel cards and our start code system to increase security,' Taute said. 'It's just another point of safety, and it makes it much easier to track down and prove any infractions.' Likewise, QuikQ also offers fuel type and gallon limits based on the asset. Those controls prevent cases where a driver may try to inappropriately purchase extra fuel for another vehicle or for reefer trailer fuel, for instance. 'We've seen many incidents where a driver fueled a reefer trailer and billed that as truck fuel, which throws off all IFTA accounting,' Taute said. 'Again, it's just another element of security that we provide to ensure that purchased fuel winds up in the right asset.' Aside from the security benefits, QuikQ's payment instruments also provide many back office efficiency benefits to carriers simply by providing that kind of verification. 'That was eye opening for me,' Taute said. 'I always knew fraud and mistakes occurred, but being able to verify it and hear accounts from our customers about how much time they saved was incredible to see.' Quarterly IFTA statements, for example, are often a major pain point for carriers. Just like income taxes can be overpaid or underpaid at the end of the year, carriers may overpay in one state and underpay in another, meaning they have a credit in one state and a payment due in another. By making it simpler to track which fuel is being purchased by which asset, QuikQ can compress the process for carriers and make it much simpler to account for IFTA expenses. 'Every RFID transaction is automatically assigned to the asset, meaning now your IFTA taxes are clean on record,' Taute said. 'In the past, I've worked with carriers who had to spend many hours per month trying to figure out which truck and trailer were involved in a purchase, but with SmartQR RFID, that whole process is automated.' There are still carriers who use printed receipts in their accounting, but those kinds of outdated processes are no longer necessary with the right technology, Taute says. More and more companies are adopting technology to make their back office operations more efficient, and that's something that carriers need to consider in order to compete. 'We're also excited to be launching a solid fuel card platform for payment factoring clients,' Taute said. 'A lot of those factoring services are now offering fuel cards, and we're taking the opportunity to meet the demand for that trend. Bringing our anti-fraud technology to the table with that solution is exciting for a lot of our clients who are looking for the best options in the marketplace,' he said. Combining fuel card programs with invoice factoring helps factoring companies connect with carriers more tightly and increases the value of those factoring services. With this system, the factoring company is funding an invoice, and they can load funds to a QuikQ prepaid account for a carrier in real time. Consolidating that ecosystem and enabling factoring companies to move that money around makes it seamless and makes balances easily reviewable. 'When a carrier needs money, they need that money right now in order to fuel their trucks and operate,' Taute said. 'Using our RFID technology on top of this ensures that factoring companies and carriers don't have to worry about fraud,' Taute said. QuikQ can confirm with certainty that an asset was at a specific pump, and the monitoring systems in place can determine whether or not a truck fueled en route on a given load, which is verifiable for every party involved. Being able to provide that kind of fraud deterrence is a huge help for both carriers and factoring companies, says Taute. The biggest pain point for many carrier fuel departments, according to Taute, is the fact that fraud and payment issues often prevent drivers from being able to properly refuel while on the road. If a driver is stuck at a truckstop and unable to complete a purchase, the carrier is unable to generate revenue. 'Resolving those issues depends on customer service, and with us you're talking to a human being on the phone in under a minute,' Taute said. A lot of what QuikQ provides, however, involves tools to help carriers resolve and prevent issues on their own. 'We can educate the customer and help them triage transaction clearing issues, whether that's something like a driver entering the wrong unit number, being at an unauthorized truckstop, purchasing an unauthorized product, and so on,' Taute said. 'Our customer service team will gladly help, but honestly most customers would rather not have to rely on help in the first place,' Taute said. 'Instead of forcing customers to even have to call us, we can help them understand what to look for so they can avoid having issues and move on more quickly.' In some cases, drivers may be incentivized to purchase fuel at certain locations, and QuikQ can help set up authorizations to make operations more efficient. The SmartQ RFID system is scalable depending on what a carrier wants to do. 'From a fuel perspective, you have to account for the price of fuel in certain locations, IFTA tax considerations, and the route,' Taute explained. 'We've got all the levers so carriers can keep their fuel purchases as open or as tightly controlled as needed.' 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Miami Herald
14 hours ago
- Miami Herald
How the federal immigration raids could disrupt California's economy
President Trump promised a new "golden age" for America, but it's been anything but that for Los Angeles, with its dependence on trade and immigrant labor - two backbones of the region's economy. First, the president's tariffs cut deeply into traffic at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, and now his push to arrest undocumented immigrants at work sites, which has spurred massive protests after Trump deployed the National Guard, threatens a one-two punch to a region just starting its recovery from January's firestorms. "The reality is that the U.S. economy is largely today dependent upon foreign born labor - and in California more so," said Nicholas Eberstadt, a political economist at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning think tank in Washington. "For the country as a whole, we're getting towards 1 out of 5 jobs being filled currently by somebody who was born abroad. In California, it's more like 1 in 3." 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Many spend their day watching screens, he said: "How much of that is health? How much of that is pain? How much of that is psychic pain? It would be great if we had more reportage on this." In the longer term, there also may be a paradoxical effects on wages, especially in California, Texas and Florida, according to a forthcoming research paper in the American Economic Review titled "Immigration, Innovation and Growth." If all undocumented immigrants in the U.S. were deported, after five years, California would see average annual wages decrease by $970, with Florida seeing a decrease of $560, according to the paper. Texas would see a decrease of $187, according to the paper. The theory is that the more productive people you have in an economy, the more it grows, said Tarek Hassan, a professor of economics at Boston University. With immigrants filling jobs, it frees up others to invent, create new patents and figure out ways to make the economy more efficient, which generates wealth. 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"They haven't been laid off, but they're not working nearly as much as they did previously," Seroka told The Los Angeles Times. "Since the tariffs went into place, and in May specifically, we've really seen the work go off on the downside," Seroka said. The decline in shipping has ripple effects on L.A.'s economy. A 2023 report found that the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach contributed $21.8 billion in direct revenue to local service providers, generating $2.7 billion in state and local taxes and creating 165,462 jobs, directly and indirectly. The slowdown in activity also has spread into surrounding communities. Businesses near the ports rely on a robust community of workers to frequent their establishments. "We're starting to hear from small businesses and restaurants in the harbor area that their customer patronage is trending downward," Seroka said. "Outside of COVID, this is the biggest drop I've seen in my career." Then there's the effect that deploying the National Guard and the turmoil it is having on the tourism industry, even though the disruptions have been limited to certain locales, said Jackie Filla, president of the Hotel Association of Los Angeles. "I'm hearing there have been just significant cancellations all across the city," Filla said, though she noted it's too soon to have hard data. "People are nervous to come to Los Angeles." International travelers also may be concerned about being detained, with Los Angeles clearly a target of the federal government for immigration enforcement actions, she said. And even if the immigration turmoil ends soon, the federal crackdown hurts L.A.'s brand as a tourist destination, which heavily leans on status as a global hub, with its diversity of cuisine, people and experiences, Filla said. "People rightfully have a lot of questions. They are calling hotels and wondering what the environment and atmosphere is like, and if they're going to be safe," she said. (Staff writers Suhauna Hussain and Caroline Petrow-Cohen contributed to this article.) Copyright (C) 2025, Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Portions copyrighted by the respective providers.
Business Journals
17 hours ago
- Business Journals
Daily Digest: End of an era at Fisherman's Wharf, Scale AI eyes record funding from Meta
Happy Monday, Bay Area. Tensions remain high in Los Angeles as protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement took over the city this weekend, with demonstrators clashing with law enforcement as President Trump deployed 2,000 members of the National Guard to "address the lawlessness." The state of California will file a lawsuit on Monday challenging President Trump's use of the National Guard, Gov. Gavin Newsom stated on social media. Trump suggested Newsom should be arrested over his response. Protests also broke out in downtown San Francisco on Sunday with 60 arrests made, the Chronicle reports. Meanwhile in transportation, Alphabet-owned Waymo has suspended service of its ride-hailing service in downtown Los Angeles after some of its vehicles were set on fire during protests. 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