Tax Attorney in Fresno, California

Yes, Fresno is one of only five California cities the United States Tax Court designates as a place of trial — alongside Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, and Sacramento. A Fresno petitioner designates "Fresno, California" as the place of trial on the petition under Tax Court Rule 140, with sessions held at the Robert E. Coyle United States Courthouse at 2500 Tulare Street. The court calendars Fresno sessions several times a year depending on docket volume. Visiting petitioners may also designate San Francisco, Los Angeles, or Sacramento where docket timing or witness logistics call for it — but Fresno representation removes the travel burden for the San Joaquin Valley.

The FTB Fresno Field Office sits at 5050 N Palm Avenue, Suite 100, Fresno CA 93704. This is the home FTB office for Fresno residents and businesses: residency audits under R&TC §17014, Notice of Proposed Assessment protests, FTB Settlement Bureau review under §19443, and walk-in services for individual taxpayers. The CDTFA Fresno District Office sits separately at 8050 N Palm Avenue, Suite 100, also Fresno CA 93711, handling sales-and-use-tax audits across Fresno, Madera, Kings, Tulare, and Mariposa counties. Most resolution work runs by phone, secure portal, and written submission, but in-person hearings and conferences happen at the Palm Avenue addresses when calendaring requires.

IRC §263A(f) requires Uniform Capitalization of direct and allocable indirect costs during a plant's "pre-productive period" — the years between planting and commercial bearing. For almonds, the pre-productive period typically runs three to four years before commercial yield; pistachios run five to seven years; table grapes run two to three years; wine grapes run three years. During that window, land preparation, planting, tree purchase, irrigation installation, labor, supervisory salary allocations, and interest on debt financing the trees all capitalize into the basis of the planting rather than expense to Schedule F. The election out under §263A(d)(3) lets an operator avoid UNICAP in exchange for switching the trees to the Alternative Depreciation System (longer recovery periods, no bonus depreciation). The election is irrevocable; once made it sticks for the operator and all members of the operator's family. The IRS audits this election retroactively when the orchard sells or refinances, so the decision deserves model-before-file analysis.

Often, yes. IRC §1301 lets a Schedule F filer (and certain fishermen) elect to average "elected farm income" back across the prior three taxable years on Schedule J of Form 1040. If the prior three years sat in 12-percent or 22-percent brackets and the current year would otherwise push you into 32 or 35 percent, the elected farm income falls into the prior-year rate stacks and produces a tax that approximates the average. The election does not change the prior-year returns; it only computes current-year tax as if the income had been earned across four years. Capital gains, depreciation recapture under §1245, wages, and most non-farm income do not qualify as "elected farm income." We model the election alongside §179 expensing on equipment, bonus depreciation under §168(k) on irrigation, and any §1031 like-kind exchange of farmland or breeding herd to determine the best combination. California conforms to §1301 for state purposes.

IRC §2032A allows an executor to elect special-use valuation for qualified real property used as a farm. Instead of valuing the almond ranch at its highest-and-best-use value (which in Fresno County frequently means residential or industrial conversion potential), the property is valued by capitalizing average annual gross cash rental for comparable land. The reduction is capped at an inflation-adjusted figure ($1,420,000 for 2026, indexed annually). To qualify, the property must have been used as a farm by the decedent or family for five of the eight years preceding death, the decedent or family must have materially participated, the heir must continue qualified use for ten years post-death, and the heir must materially participate during that decade. If the heir leases the orchard to a non-family operator within ten years or stops material participation, recapture under §2032A(c) reverses the benefit and triggers an additional estate tax. Coordinating §2032A with the §1014 stepped-up basis on the orchard improvements is essential — otherwise you can lose more on income tax through depreciation reset than you save on the estate side.

H-2A wages are not subject to FICA (Social Security and Medicare) under IRC §3121(b)(1) or FUTA under §3306(c)(1)(B). Federal income tax withholding is voluntary — the worker may request it on a W-4, but the employer is not required to withhold by default. Report H-2A wages on Form W-2 with Box 1 (federal wages) populated and Boxes 3 and 5 (Social Security and Medicare wages) blank. The worker still owes federal income tax on the wages and files Form 1040 (or 1040-NR depending on substantial-presence status under §7701(b)). Many H-2A workers need an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) under IRC §6109 on Form W-7. California layers state income-tax withholding under R&TC §18551 and a separate EDD framework for state UI and ETT. Compliance on the employer side is heavily audited at the EDD and FTB levels in Central Valley counties, and we routinely structure compliance audits and ITIN application support for Fresno County farm-labor operations.

Likely yes. U.S. persons with foreign financial accounts whose aggregate value exceeded $10,000 at any point during the calendar year must file FinCEN Form 114 (FBAR) by April 15 with an automatic extension to October 15, under 31 USC §5314. A separate Form 8938 under IRC §6038D attaches to the federal return at higher thresholds. Fresno's Hmong American community — the largest concentration of Hmong in the United States — frequently holds family accounts at banks in Vientiane, Luang Prabang, Bangkok, and Chiang Mai, plus pooled clan funds and remittance arrangements. Signatory authority over a parent's or sibling's foreign account is enough to trigger FBAR; you do not need to own the funds. Non-willful penalties under Bittner v. United States, 598 U.S. 85 (2023), are capped per report not per account ($10,000 inflation-adjusted per year). Willful penalties reach 50 percent of the highest balance per year. Streamlined Filing Compliance Procedures (Domestic Offshore) require three years of amended Form 1040-X, six years of FBAR, and Form 14653 streamlined certification — a path we use frequently for Fresno Hmong families.

A common Fresno-area Punjabi-Sikh fact pattern. U.S. persons report foreign real property sales on Schedule D of Form 1040 at U.S. capital-gains rates. Indian capital-gains tax paid on the sale generates a foreign tax credit under IRC §901 for the U.S. side — subject to the §904 limitation that caps the credit at the U.S. tax otherwise due on the foreign-source income. The U.S.-India tax treaty interacts with this. Repatriation of proceeds through an NRE or NRO account triggers FBAR if the account crossed $10,000 at any point during the year, plus Form 8938 if you cross the higher attached-to-1040 thresholds. Gifting proceeds among U.S.-resident family members is gift tax under IRC §2501; gifting among non-resident family is not. Section 6677 imposes information-reporting penalties for failure to file Form 3520 on certain foreign-trust and large-gift receipt scenarios. The order of operations — sell, repatriate, gift, distribute — matters more than people realize. We sit down before the sale where possible and reconstruct the path when the sale has already closed.

Often yes, if your past non-filing or non-disclosure was non-willful. Fresno is a historic Armenian-American center going back to the post-1915 diaspora — William Saroyan's hometown — and the community still holds accounts in Yerevan, Beirut, and the broader Armenian diaspora. Streamlined Filing Compliance Procedures (Domestic Offshore) require certification on Form 14653 that the failure was due to non-willful conduct (negligence, inadvertence, mistake, or good-faith misunderstanding), three years of amended Form 1040-X with all foreign-source income now reported, six years of FBAR catch-up filings on FinCEN Form 114, and payment of a 5-percent miscellaneous offshore penalty on the highest year-end aggregate balance. Willful conduct disqualifies a taxpayer from Streamlined; those cases route through Voluntary Disclosure with materially higher penalty exposure. We assess willfulness honestly before filing — the program does not work if the certification is wrong, and IRS Criminal Investigation can pursue false-statements charges under 18 USC §1001 on a defective Form 14653.

A common Community Regional Medical Center, Saint Agnes, and Kaiser Fresno pattern at the locum tenens and contracted-specialist layer. A 1099-NEC physician pays self-employment tax under IRC §1401 (15.3 percent on the first ~$168,600 for 2024 indexed, 2.9 percent Medicare with no cap thereafter plus the 0.9-percent additional Medicare under §3101(b)(2) above $200,000 single / $250,000 married), federal income tax, and California income tax. Underpayment penalties under §6654 trigger when quarterly estimates fail safe-harbor (the lesser of 90 percent of current-year tax or 100/110 percent of prior-year tax). Resolution: a streamlined IRS IA under $50,000, a Non-Streamlined IA above with Form 433-F disclosure, or a Partial Pay IA under IRC §6159 if affordability is below standard ALE budgets. Going forward, an S-corp election may reduce SE tax exposure (paying a reasonable W-2 salary with the balance as K-1 distribution), but reasonable-compensation analysis under Watson v. Commissioner (8th Cir. 2012) and IRS audit risk merit a sit-down before electing.

California uses the domicile test at Cal. Rev. & Tax. Code §17014 and FTB Publication 1031, weighing nine factors: physical-presence days, location of family, location of primary residence, driver's license, vehicle registration, voter registration, banking, professional licenses, and business or social ties. Appeal of Bragg (2003-SBE-002) and Appeal of Bindley (2018) frame the OTA's analysis. Retaining a Bullard, Fig Garden, or Woodward Park home, a downtown Fresno condo, or family agricultural land while claiming Idaho residency is the most common reason Fresno departing-resident audits fail. The defense is a documented clean break at the time of the move: new Idaho driver's license, new voter registration, sale or genuine arm's-length lease of the Fresno home (or transfer to a non-family-related LLC for orchard parcels), transfer of professional licenses, and a careful physical-presence log under the 9-month presumption rule at §17016. Idaho gives a credit for tax paid to California under Idaho Code §63-3029, so a genuine non-resident is not double-taxed on the same income — but the domicile question must be settled first.

CDTFA mark-up audits on cash-intensive Fresno restaurants pull Z-tapes, point-of-sale reports, food and beverage purchase invoices, and observation-period data to build a projected sales figure, then compare against reported sales. Discrepancies generate an assessment under Cal. Rev. & Tax. Code §6481. The defense is challenging the test-period sample and the mark-up percentage before they scale across the audit period. We file a Petition for Redetermination, escalate to the CDTFA appeals conference at the Fresno District Office at 8050 N Palm Avenue, and pursue the Office of Tax Appeals if needed — OTA has a Fresno hearing room, so San Joaquin Valley appellants can argue in-person locally. Dual-determinations against officers and LLC members under §6829 are a separate exposure that we head off in parallel. Tower District, Blackstone Avenue, Shaw Avenue, and downtown corridors all draw heightened CDTFA scrutiny.

EDD applies the ABC test from Cal. Lab. Code §2775 (codifying Dynamex). To classify a worker as a 1099 contractor, you must show (A) freedom from control and direction, (B) the work falls outside the company's usual course of business, and (C) the worker is engaged in an independent trade. Agricultural labor through a licensed Farm Labor Contractor (FLC) registered with the California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement and the U.S. Department of Labor sits in a tightly regulated category — the FLC is treated as the employer of the field crew, and growers contracting with the FLC are typically buying labor as a service rather than employing the crew directly. EDD reclassification on improperly structured pass-through 1099 arrangements produces back UI, ETT, SDI, and PIT withholding for three years plus penalties under UIC §1126. The defense includes verifying FLC licensure under Cal. Lab. Code §1682, B2B-structure documentation under the §2776 exemption, and protest filings at the EDD assessment level followed by Petition for Reassessment to the Office of Tax Appeals.

The California Land Conservation Act (Williamson Act) at Cal. Gov. Code §51200 et seq. allows a county to enter ten-year rolling contracts with agricultural landowners. The county assessor values enrolled parcels using the agricultural-income capitalization formula rather than full Prop 13 market value — producing meaningfully lower annual property taxes for qualifying Fresno County orchards, vineyards, and dairy parcels. Non-renewal triggers a nine-year ramp-up where the assessed value walks back toward full Prop 13 value before contract expiry; cancellation under §51282 triggers a 12.5-percent cancellation fee on the unrestricted-use market value. Sale of an enrolled parcel does not by itself trigger cancellation, but the buyer must continue qualified agricultural use to avoid breach. The Fresno County Assessor at 2281 Tulare Street, Room 201 administers the contracts and the AAB at the same address hears valuation disputes. Federal estate-tax interaction with §2032A special-use valuation also matters — the two regimes are not coextensive and a parcel can qualify for one and not the other.

A Notice of Federal Tax Lien recorded with the Fresno County Recorder clouds title until released, subordinated, discharged, or withdrawn. For refinance, the typical path is subordination under IRC §6325(d): Form 14134 (Application for Certificate of Subordination of Federal Tax Lien) shows the IRS that the refinance proceeds will pay down the tax debt or that subordination otherwise helps collection. If the underlying liability has been paid, request release on Form 668(Z). If you are on a streamlined IA under $25,000, lien withdrawal under Fresh Start (Form 12277) is available and clears title cleaner than release. The FTB State Tax Lien parallel under Cal. Gov. Code §7174 has its own release and subordination procedures. Both records sit at the Fresno County Recorder at 2281 Tulare Street. For Fresno County orchard, vineyard, or dairy parcels, discharge of the lien from a portion of property under §6325(b) is sometimes the right tool — for example, when the operator wants to sell a parcel section to fund an OIC while keeping the home ranch.

IRC §199A(g) is the cooperative-specific deduction Congress enacted after repealing the Domestic Production Activities Deduction in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. A §521-qualified farmer cooperative (Sun-Maid Growers of California, Blue Diamond Growers, Sunkist Growers, Land O'Lakes, and others) calculates a deduction equal to 9 percent of the lesser of qualified production activities income or taxable income (with a W-2 wage limitation). The cooperative may either retain the deduction itself or pass it through to patrons on Form 1099-PATR. Patrons receiving the pass-through deduction add it to their patronage dividends and reconcile the regular §199A QBI deduction with the §199A(g) coop deduction — with a coordination rule that reduces the QBI side by the cooperative pass-through to prevent double-counting. The math gets technical, especially for growers shipping to multiple cooperatives or for an operator who is both a Schedule F farmer and a partner in a related packing-house LLC. We coordinate the planning with the operator's CPA and pull the 1099-PATRs into the controversy file when an audit hits.

In Fresno itself. The IRS Fresno Taxpayer Assistance Center sits at 2525 Capitol Street, Fresno CA 93721. Appointments are required and made through apps.irs.gov/app/office-locator or by calling 844-545-5640. For most resolution work, in-person visits are not required — we represent clients by Form 2848 PoA and route notices directly to counsel. ITIN applications under Form W-7 are one situation where in-person identity verification at the TAC is often the most efficient path, particularly for H-2A workers and for Hmong, Punjabi-Sikh, and Armenian community members who need an ITIN to file 1040 returns. The Fresno region also historically housed major IRS service-center processing for Western United States paper returns; some notices reference that processing center even though the resolution work proceeds through the TAC, Automated Collection System, or assigned Revenue Officer.

No. The firm is headquartered at 1100 S. Robertson Boulevard in Los Angeles, and we represent clients across all 58 California counties. Fresno engagements run by phone, secure portal, and email; in-person meetings happen by appointment at the LA office for clients who prefer face-to-face. We appear at the FTB Fresno Field Office at 5050 N Palm Avenue, the CDTFA Fresno District Office at 8050 N Palm Avenue, U.S. Tax Court Fresno trial sessions at 2500 Tulare Street, the IRS Fresno TAC at 2525 Capitol Street, the U.S. District Court Eastern District of California Fresno Division at the Robert E. Coyle Courthouse, the California Court of Appeal Fifth Appellate District at 2424 Ventura Street, the Fresno County Superior Court B.F. Sisk Courthouse at 1130 O Street, and the Fresno County Assessor and Assessment Appeals Board at 2281 Tulare Street as case calendaring requires.