Tax Attorney in Mono County

Yes — in Sacramento and Los Angeles. The U.S. Tax Court designates Sacramento as a place of trial at the Robert T. Matsui U.S. Courthouse, 501 I Street, Sacramento 95814 (the closest northern session for Mono County). Los Angeles is the southern alternative at the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building, 255 E. Temple Street, Los Angeles 90012. Mammoth Lakes and southern Mono petitioners often designate Los Angeles given the US-395-south route through Bishop and the Owens Valley; Bridgeport-area petitioners more commonly designate Sacramento. The Court calendars sessions at each location several times per year.

Both the Treasurer-Tax Collector and the Assessor operate from the Annex II at 25 Bryant Street, Bridgeport 93517 — the two offices share the county government center, which makes parallel property-tax matters efficient. The Treasurer-Tax Collector handles property-tax billing, collection, payment plans for defaulted property, and the annual tax-defaulted property auction. The Assessor sets the assessed value of each parcel. Disputes over assessed value go to the Assessor, then to the Mono County Assessment Appeals Board. Disputes over the amount owed or the bill itself go to the Treasurer-Tax Collector. Prop 13 base-year-value transfers, Prop 19 parent-to-child exclusions, Prop 8 decline-in-value applications, and calamity reassessments for wildfire-damaged or storm-damaged parcels all route through the Assessor.

Possibly, on two grounds. First, the FTB nine-factor domicile test under Cal. Rev. & Tax. Code §17014 looks at where your life is actually centered — primary home, vehicles, voter registration, driver's license, professional licenses, family ties, bank accounts, medical and dental care, religious and social organizations. A move from Bridgeport to the Topaz Lake / Mono Lake Junction Nevada side is geographically short (25 minutes north on US-395) but legally significant only if the supporting facts move with you. Keeping the California ranch parcel, family in California schools, California consulting clients, California professional licenses, or California-titled vehicles undermines the position. The FTB knows the eastern-Sierra pattern and examines partial-year filings routinely. Second, California-source income earned during California residency or from California-source clients post-move (consulting fees from California-based clients, real-property transactions in California, S-corp distributions from a California-based entity) remains taxable to California even after you become a Nevada domiciliary. The fact pattern matters more than the move itself.

Two questions actually live inside that one. First, the IRC §280A 14-day rule: if you personally use the property for more than 14 days or 10 percent of the days it is rented at fair value (whichever is greater), the property is treated as a residence, and deductions are limited to rental income with carryforward of the excess. Holiday-week, ski-week, and August fishing-window personal stays add up fast on a Snowcreek, Old Mammoth, or Lakes Basin condo. Second, the Schedule E versus Schedule C question turns on whether you provide "substantial services" beyond what a typical landlord provides — daily housekeeping, on-site concierge, meals, guided ski-day or fishing-day packages. An owner using a Mammoth-area property manager and providing only the basics typically reports on Schedule E. An owner running a small-inn-style operation with daily cleaning and breakfast may end up on Schedule C with self-employment tax exposure. Passive-activity loss limits under IRC §469 also apply — rental losses generally cannot offset W-2 income unless the real-estate-professional test is met (750 hours plus more than 50 percent of personal services in real-estate activity). The Town of Mammoth Lakes short-term rental permit program and TOT collection also documents personal-versus-rental use in town records the auditor can request.

Individual ranch easements with rigorous documentation are a legitimate planning tool and remain so. The IRS has scrutinized syndicated conservation-easement structures heavily since the 2020s and the Tax Court has invalidated many; the audit risk for a genuine single-family or single-ranch easement is meaningfully lower but not zero. The substantiation rules under IRC §170(f)(11) and Reg. §1.170A-13 require a qualified appraisal by a qualified appraiser using the before-and-after method, baseline documentation acceptable to the land trust, and a deed of easement that meets all of the §170(h) qualified-real-property-interest, qualified-organization, and conservation-purpose requirements. Eastern Sierra Land Trust, California Rangeland Trust, and the broader land-trust network active in Mono County maintain protocols that hold up well. If the IRS challenges the valuation, the §6662(h) gross-valuation-misstatement penalty can apply at 40 percent of the underpayment if the claimed value is 200 percent or more of the correct value. Strong appraisal substantiation is the defense.

Yes — three of them. FTB compromise authority sits at Cal. Rev. & Tax. Code §19443 (filed on FTB Form 4905 PIT for individuals or 4905 BE for entities). CDTFA operates a parallel offer program for sales-and-use tax. EDD compromise authority sits at Cal. Unemp. Ins. Code §1192 for payroll-tax liabilities. Each program has its own form, financial disclosure standard, and review path. The FTB §19443 compromise unit sits in headquarters at 9646 Butterfield Way in Rancho Cordova. Submitting an FTB OIC does not affect a federal IRS OIC; the two are evaluated by separate teams under different RCP standards, and California is generally tougher on primary-residence equity than the IRS — which matters for high-equity Mammoth Lakes condos and ranch parcels typical of Mono County filers.

Two periods matter. For FTB assessment, Cal. Rev. & Tax. Code §19057 generally gives the FTB four years from a filed return to assess, with no statute on unfiled returns. For FTB collection, §19255 gives the FTB 20 years from the latest of assessment, due date, or final return filing — double the federal 10-year period under IRC §6502. CDTFA assessment runs three years under §6487 (eight for unfiled or fraud), with collection generally 10 years under §6711. EDD has its own windows under the Unemployment Insurance Code. A Mono County filer who watches the federal CSED expire in 2026 may still face FTB collection until 2036 on the same year — and the FTB's reach into California-source income survives a move across the state line to Nevada or anywhere else.

Yes. The IRS examines federal income tax under the Internal Revenue Code; the FTB examines California state income tax under the Revenue and Taxation Code. The two agencies operate independent audit programs but share information through formal information-exchange agreements. An IRS adjustment to federal taxable income is reported to the FTB under the federal-state agreement, and a Revenue Agent Report can trigger a parallel California assessment within four years. CDTFA sales-tax audits and EDD payroll audits can run alongside both. A single Mono County small business — say, a Mammoth Village restaurant or a Bridgeport-area ranching operation with on-site retail — can have a 2022 tax year open in four different forums at once.

Probably yes, on both sides. Federal IRC §6672 assesses a Trust Fund Recovery Penalty against any "responsible person" who "willfully" failed to pay over withheld taxes — the FICA and federal income-tax withholding portion of Form 941, not the employer's share. The IRS conducts a Form 4180 interview to identify responsible persons. Anyone with check-signing authority, payroll-decision authority, or knowledge of unpaid taxes can be assessed. On the California side, Cal. Unemp. Ins. Code §1735 assesses personal liability for EDD payroll-tax withholding (SDI, PIT withholding) against the same class of responsible persons. CDTFA sales-tax personal liability under Cal. Rev. & Tax. Code §6829 operates under similar principles. For a Mammoth Village restaurant, a Mammoth Lakes lodging operator, a June Lake or Lee Vining seasonal hospitality business, or a Bridgeport main-street operator that closes with unpaid 941s, the owner usually faces all three exposures simultaneously.

The question is for the engager, not the worker. California's AB 5 statute, codified at Cal. Lab. Code §2775 et seq., applies the Dynamex ABC test: a worker is an employee unless (A) free from control and direction in performing the work, (B) performing work outside the usual course of the hiring entity's business, and (C) customarily engaged in an independently established trade. A ski instructor teaching on Mammoth Mountain's slopes, in uniform, on Mammoth's scheduled lesson grid almost always fails prong B (teaching skiing is exactly Mammoth's usual course of business) and often fails prong A (Mammoth controls the lesson grid, the uniform, the curriculum). EDD has assessed ski-school and snow-school reclassifications across California resorts; back UI, ETT, SDI, and PIT withholding plus penalties go to the resort, not the instructor. The same analysis applies to summer-fishing-guide operations on Crowley Lake and the Owens River, Yosemite east-side concession contractors at Lee Vining, and tour-guide work at Bodie or Mono Lake.

Yes. IRC §7345 authorizes the IRS to certify "seriously delinquent" federal tax debt — currently $62,000 for 2026, indexed for inflation — to the State Department, which may then deny passport renewal or revoke an active passport. Certification reverses when the debt is paid, an IA is in place, an OIC is accepted, an active CDP hearing is pending, or Innocent Spouse Relief is in process. Mammoth Mountain executives attending overseas ski-industry events, Yosemite east-side concession executives with international project work, and Mono County residents with international family ties all need to address §7345 certifications before travel. The California FTB does not certify to the State Department but can independently affect California licenses in certain circumstances.

Several layers apply. First, federal casualty-loss treatment for federally-declared-disaster areas under IRC §165(i) allows the loss to be deducted on either the year of the loss or the prior year (an amended return for the prior year can accelerate the refund). Second, IRC §1033 involuntary-conversion treatment allows deferral of any insurance-proceeds gain on the destroyed property if the proceeds are reinvested in like-kind replacement property within the statutory window (two years for personal-use, four years for business or income-producing real property, with extensions available in federally-declared disasters). Third, IRC §7508A postpones federal filing and payment deadlines for taxpayers in the declared disaster area — the IRS typically issues a notice with the specific dates and affected ZIP codes; recent eastern-Sierra winter and atmospheric-river disaster declarations have triggered these postponements. Fourth, FTB conformity to the federal disaster-relief postponements is automatic for California-conforming items, with FTB-specific notices for state-only items. Fifth, the Mono County Assessor administers calamity reassessments under Cal. Rev. & Tax. Code §170 that reduce the assessed value of the destroyed structure and reactivate the original base-year value when a replacement structure is built under the Prop 50 / Prop 19 framework. The combination can produce a federal refund, a deferred-gain position on insurance proceeds, a property-tax reduction, and penalty relief for any compliance lapse during the disaster window.

No. The firm is headquartered at 1100 S. Robertson Boulevard in Los Angeles, but we represent clients throughout Mono County by phone, secure document portal, and email. Most engagements never require an in-person meeting. When in-person matters — an FTB headquarters conference at Rancho Cordova, a Tax Court trial at the Matsui Courthouse in Sacramento or the Roybal Federal Building in Los Angeles, a U.S. District Court appearance, an OTA hearing at 400 R Street, or a Mono County Superior Court appearance at the Bridgeport North County Branch or the Mammoth Lakes South County Branch — we coordinate appropriately. Some Mono County clients meet by Zoom, others prefer phone, and we make the trip to the eastern Sierra when the case calls for it.

Yes. Communications between you and a California-licensed attorney for the purpose of seeking legal advice are protected by California Evidence Code §954 attorney-client privilege and the parallel federal common-law attorney-client privilege, subject to the usual exceptions (crime-fraud, waiver). The narrower federally-authorized tax practitioner privilege under IRC §7525 applies to non-attorney CPAs and EAs but does not extend to criminal-tax matters. An attorney handling your tax case retains the broader privilege that survives criminal investigation.