Tax Attorney in Berkeley, California

For adult-use (recreational) sales, yes. The April 2026 DEA partial rescheduling moved certain medical-use cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III but left adult-use product on Schedule I, which means IRC §280E continues to deny every ordinary business deduction except cost of goods sold. Berkeley dispensaries on University Avenue, San Pablo, and Sacramento Street running consumer adult-use storefronts still cannot deduct rent, wages of sales staff, marketing, security beyond product protection, or utilities. Only cultivation labor, raw plant material, packaging, and indirect inventory costs allocable under IRC §471 and the Tax Court's CHAMP / Olive / Patients Mutual framework reach COGS. We rebuild §471 inventory accounting, defend Cash Intensive Business Audit Technique Guide examinations from the IRS, and coordinate parallel CDTFA cannabis-excise reviews. Medical-only operations may now claim ordinary §162 deductions post-rescheduling — but the regulatory line is sharp and the IRS will examine the dual-track classification.

LBNL is operated by the University of California under DOE prime contract DE-AC02-05CH11231, and many visiting researchers, post-docs on certain fellowship arrangements, and consulting scientists receive Form 1099-NEC or 1099-MISC rather than a UC payroll W-2. That triggers IRC §1402 self-employment tax at 15.3 percent on net earnings up to the Social Security wage base plus 2.9 percent Medicare above it, plus the §1401(b)(2) additional Medicare tax of 0.9 percent above the threshold. If you also missed quarterly estimated payments, §6654 underpayment penalty stacks on top. We file Schedule C with documented research-related expenses (home-office under §280A, computing equipment, conference travel, journal subscriptions, supplies), evaluate whether the relationship is properly characterized as independent contractor under Rev. Rul. 87-41 and the §530 safe harbor for the payor, and pursue Form SS-8 worker classification redetermination where the facts support W-2 treatment retroactively. For post-doctoral fellowship recipients, IRC §117(c) requires fellowship amounts conditioned on services to flow through W-2 wages — misclassification is correctable.

UC Berkeley's Intellectual Property & Industry Research Alliances office (IPIRA) has licensed founding IP to a long list of spin-outs — Intellia, Caribou Biosciences, and Rewrite among the better-known. Whether your shares qualify under IRC §1202 turns on six tests applied at multiple snapshots: (1) the corporation must be a C-corp at issuance and throughout your holding period; (2) gross assets must be at or below $75 million at the time the stock is issued (raised from $50M by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act for stock issued after July 4, 2025); (3) the company must be an active business in a qualified trade or business — life sciences and software generally qualify, but financial, farming, hospitality, and personal-services-of-the-owner businesses do not under §1202(e)(3); (4) you must acquire shares at original issuance for cash, property, or services, not on the secondary market; (5) the five-year holding period (with phased partial exclusions of 50 percent at three years and 75 percent at four years under the 2025 expansion) for stock issued after July 4, 2025; and (6) per-issuer cap of $15 million or 10x basis. We confirm §1202(c) qualified-small-business-stock status with the company, document the §1202(g) aggregate-basis rule, and plan §1045 rollovers if you need liquidity before the five-year mark. Pre-2025 shares retain the older $50M / $10M / strict five-year framework.

Yes, and the deadline is tight. Cal Const Art XIIIA §2 as amended by Prop 19 (2021) limits the parent-child base-year-value exclusion to a primary residence that the child actually occupies as a principal residence within one year of transfer, with a $1M cap above the parent's base-year value. If the Alameda County Assessor reassesses the Berkeley property because the home is being used as a rental, a second home, or exceeds the $1M cap, you have two parallel options. First, request informal review at the Alameda County Assessor's office at 1221 Oak Street, Oakland — a no-cost reconsideration that can resolve value disputes without a formal hearing. Second, file a formal Assessment Appeals Board application on BOE-305-AH with the Clerk of the Board at 1221 Oak Street, Oakland, between July 2 and September 15 of the assessment year under R&TC §1603 — that deadline is jurisdictional and is not extended for late filings. For supplemental assessments triggered by the inheritance event, the AAB application is due within 60 days of the Notice of Supplemental Assessment under R&TC §1605. We document the §63.2 occupancy facts, compile comparable-sales evidence, and represent at the AAB hearing.

Yes, the FTB applies the closer-connection test under R&TC §17014 and §17015 to anyone whose ties to California outlive their physical departure, and the test was hardened by Appeal of Stephen Bragg (2003-SBE-002) and the Bindley line of cases. The FTB looks at 29 factors — where your spouse and minor children live, where your homes are, where your driver's license and vehicle registrations are, where you bank and store valuables, where your professional licenses are issued, where your doctors and dentists are, what jurisdiction you vote in, the proportion of days physically in California versus elsewhere, and the source of your earned income. A Berkeley resident who moves to Austin in October but keeps a Berkeley house, a Cal football season ticket, and quarterly visits to UCSF medical providers is at high risk of a residency audit. We document the residency change with a state-by-state day count, asset-and-license transfer log, Form 540NR part-year return, severance-package allocation under R&TC §17041, and contemporaneous evidence files that survive a five-year-look-back examination. The FTB has 4 years from filing under R&TC §19057 — open-ended under R&TC §19058 if no return was filed.

No, the state clock runs twice as long as the federal clock. The IRS Collection Statute Expiration Date under IRC §6502 is 10 years from the assessment date, tolled during Offers in Compromise, Collection Due Process hearings, bankruptcy stays, military deferments under §7508, and certain time abroad. The FTB collection statute under R&TC §19255 is 20 years from the assessment date — exactly twice as long — and the state's tolling provisions are narrower. A federal debt from a 2010 assessment is uncollectible after 2020; a parallel California debt from the same return survives until 2030. That asymmetry drives strategy. For a Berkeley client with both an IRS and an FTB liability, the IRS Offer in Compromise under IRC §7122 may not be matched on the FTB side under R&TC §19443, and an OIC that closes the federal exposure can leave a 20-year FTB Wage Garnishment Order under R&TC §19006 still hanging. We pull the account transcript from both agencies before recommending a strategy.

CDTFA audits run out of the Oakland District Office at 1515 Clay Street, Suite 303, Oakland, CA 94612, the same building that houses the FTB Oakland field office. For a Berkeley restaurant, brewery, dispensary, or retail business, the auditor pulls federal and state income-tax returns, sales tax returns, point-of-sale Z-tapes, bank statements, supplier invoices, and inventory records, then applies one of three indirect methods — markup analysis, observation test, or bank-deposit analysis — to compute estimated taxable sales. The audit covers up to three years under R&TC §6487 (extended to eight years for unregistered sellers and indefinitely for fraud). Findings move to a Notice of Determination, then a Petition for Redetermination under R&TC §6561 within 30 days, then an appeals conference within the CDTFA, then the California Office of Tax Appeals in Sacramento under R&TC §6562 — also 30 days. We sign in under CDTFA Form 392 Power of Attorney, audit the auditor's source data, contest the markup method or sample period, and run parallel federal protective filings where the §61 gross-income exposure overlaps.

The City of Berkeley imposes an annual gross-receipts business license tax under Berkeley Municipal Code Chapter 9.04 with rates that vary by classification — retail, professional services, manufacturing, rental, cannabis, and others each have their own rate per $1,000 of gross receipts. Renewal is due by March 1 each year; the license itself expires December 31. The Utility Users Tax under BMC 7.70 applies to telephone, gas, electric, cable, and cellular services consumed by businesses operating in Berkeley. Both taxes are deductible as IRC §162 ordinary business expenses on Schedule C, Schedule E, Form 1120, or Form 1065 — but only if accrued and paid within the tax year. We see Berkeley businesses misclassify the business license tax as a personal expense or fail to apportion it across multiple-location operations, both of which trigger correctable errors. For cannabis dispensaries blocked by §280E from deducting most §162 items, the business license and utility taxes are still arguably allocable to COGS under §471 cultivation and inventory pools — the allocation methodology matters.

U.S. Tax Court trial sessions for the Northern District of California convene in San Francisco at 450 Golden Gate Avenue. Berkeley taxpayers who file a Tax Court petition under IRC §6213 within 90 days of a Notice of Deficiency get a San Francisco trial city designation — the Tax Court does not sit in Oakland or Berkeley. For tax-refund litigation under 28 U.S.C. §1346(a)(1) (full payment plus Flora rule), the venue is the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Oakland Division, in the Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building at 1301 Clay Street, Oakland. For criminal tax matters under Title 26, the same Oakland courthouse handles indictments, plea proceedings, and trials. California state-court tax appeals from the Alameda County Superior Court at 1225 Fallon Street, Oakland, run to the California Court of Appeal, First Appellate District, in San Francisco at 350 McAllister Street, and then to the California Supreme Court. The Office of Tax Appeals — the administrative tribunal for FTB and CDTFA disputes — has its Sacramento headquarters and hearing rooms in Sacramento, Los Angeles, and Fresno; Berkeley cases are typically heard by video conference or at the Sacramento HQ.

Two parallel disclosure systems: federal FBAR (FinCEN Form 114) under 31 U.S.C. §5314 and IRS Form 8938 under IRC §6038D. FBAR has a $10,000 aggregate-balance threshold across all foreign financial accounts in any calendar year; Form 8938 thresholds vary by filing status and residency but start at $50,000 end-of-year or $75,000 peak for single domestic filers. Civil non-willful FBAR penalties under 31 U.S.C. §5321 cap at $16,536 per violation (inflation-indexed); willful penalties reach the greater of $165,353 or 50 percent of the account balance per violation. For a Berkeley professor with a UK / Israel / India / Germany sabbatical bank account, the resolution path depends on willfulness. Non-willful exposure routes through the Streamlined Filing Compliance Procedures with a 5 percent miscellaneous offshore penalty for U.S. residents or zero for non-residents. Willful exposure routes through the IRS Criminal Investigation Voluntary Disclosure Practice with a separate set of consequences. We assess the willfulness facts under Bedrosian and Boyle, file the streamlined package with full eight-year FBAR back-filing, and coordinate UC Berkeley TIAA / Fidelity NetBenefits reporting clean-up.

Yes, three layers stack. First, the CDTFA cannabis excise tax under R&TC §34011 — currently 15 percent on gross receipts at the retail level since the 2025 restructuring. Second, the Berkeley Cannabis Business Tax under BMC 7.86, separately imposed on gross receipts of every cannabis retail, distribution, manufacturing, and cultivation operation inside city limits at rates tied to the operator's license type. Third, the standard Berkeley gross-receipts Business License Tax under BMC 9.04. Plus federal IRC §280E on the income side, which denies most ordinary deductions on the federal Form 1120 / 1120-S / 1065 return — California has decoupled from federal §280E for state purposes under R&TC §17280 since 2020, allowing state-level deductions, but federal exposure remains. The compliance burden for a Berkeley dispensary is roughly four separate tax filings — Berkeley local, CDTFA cannabis excise, CDTFA sales/use, and FTB / IRS income — plus quarterly cannabis tax payments and monthly POS metric reporting. We coordinate cross-agency examinations and reconcile the four returns when an audit at one agency cascades to the others.

Maybe not. The IRS uses a multi-factor common-law analysis under Rev. Rul. 87-41 — the 20-factor test — to distinguish independent contractors from employees, and the factors look at behavioral control, financial control, and the type of relationship. If your Berkeley landlord directs when and how you work, supplies tools, sets the schedule, pays hourly, and reimburses expenses, you may be a misclassified employee owed W-2 treatment, employer-side FICA contributions, workers' compensation coverage, and overtime under California Labor Code §510. Misclassification is one of the most heavily enforced areas at both the IRS and the California EDD. We file IRS Form SS-8 to request worker-status redetermination, file California EDD Form DE 1870 for a parallel state determination, and pursue Form 8919 to recover the employee share of FICA without paying the full SE tax. If you stay classified as a 1099 contractor, we set up Schedule C with proper §162 deductions, quarterly §6654 estimated payments through Form 1040-ES, and §401(k) / SEP-IRA / Solo-401(k) retirement vehicles that aggressively shelter SE income.

Six layers. First, Berkeley has restrictive short-term rental zoning under BMC 23.310 and the city's STR program — non-compliance with the city permit and host-stay rules carries enforcement risk separate from tax. Second, the Berkeley Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT) under BMC 7.36 — 12 percent of gross rental receipts, remitted monthly. Third, federal §280A vacation-home rules — fewer than 15 personal-use days means it's a rental property reported on Schedule E with full §469 passive-loss limits; more than 14 personal-use days plus more than 10 percent rental use shifts the property to mixed-use with allocated deductions. Fourth, the 14-day-or-less safe harbor under §280A(g) — rental income from a property used as a residence for at least 15 days and rented for 14 or fewer days is fully excluded from gross income. Fifth, California conformity for §280A is mostly aligned but the depreciation and §1031 rules diverge. Sixth, the §1411 Net Investment Income Tax at 3.8 percent on rental income above the threshold. We classify the activity correctly, build a §469 grouping election where the facts support it, and reconcile Airbnb/VRBO 1099-K reporting against bank deposits.

California Bar admission is exactly the right credential for a Berkeley federal-tax matter. Federal IRS practice is governed by Treasury Department Circular 230 (31 CFR Part 10), which authorizes any attorney admitted in any state — plus CPAs and Enrolled Agents — to represent taxpayers before the IRS nationwide through Form 2848 Power of Attorney. U.S. Tax Court admission is a separate federal credential under Tax Court Rule 200 that grants nationwide trial-court access, including the San Francisco trial sessions where Berkeley petitions are heard. Cal Bar admission also gives full authority to appear in front of the Franchise Tax Board, the CDTFA, the EDD, the California Office of Tax Appeals, the Alameda County Assessment Appeals Board, the Alameda County Superior Court, the California Court of Appeal First Appellate District, and the California Supreme Court — every state forum a Berkeley taxpayer might encounter. We are a Los Angeles-headquartered California-admitted firm; physical proximity to Oakland is not the relevant credential — Cal Bar admission plus U.S. Tax Court admission is.