Tax Attorney in Orange County

The U.S. Tax Court does not hold trial sessions in Orange County itself. The closest designated trial city is Los Angeles, where sessions are held at the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building at 255 E. Temple Street, roughly 35 to 45 miles from Newport Beach, Irvine, Santa Ana, and Anaheim. South Orange County petitioners closer to the San Diego County line sometimes designate San Diego instead under Tax Court Rule 140. A petitioner identifies the preferred place of trial on the deficiency petition; the Court generally calendars to the closer of the two sessions.

Two different offices. The Orange County Treasurer-Tax Collector at 12 Civic Center Plaza, Room 100, Santa Ana 92701 handles property-tax billing, collection, payment plans for defaulted property, and the annual tax-defaulted property auction. The Orange County Assessor at 500 S. Main Street, Orange 92868 (with a South County branch in Mission Viejo) sets the assessed value of each parcel. Disputes over assessed value go to the Assessor, then to the Orange 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, and Prop 8 decline-in-value applications all route through the Assessor.

IRC §1031 like-kind exchange examinations focus on three timing and structural requirements: the 45-day identification deadline, the 180-day closing deadline, and the qualified-intermediary structure. The IRS pulls the QI escrow records, the identification notice, and the purchase contracts on the replacement property. A failure on any of the three generally collapses the exchange and triggers full federal capital-gains recognition plus California's 13.3 percent ordinary-rate treatment of capital gain. Related-party rules under IRC §1031(f) add another layer for Newport Beach and Irvine family-LLC exchanges. The 2017 TCJA limited §1031 to real property only — equipment, aircraft, and personal-property exchanges from prior years still in audit pipeline are a common loss point. We work the QI records, identification notice, and contemporaneous documentation against the examiner's theory.

Almost certainly yes. U.S. persons with financial interest in or signature authority over a foreign financial account exceeding $10,000 in aggregate at any point in the year must file FinCEN Form 114 (the FBAR) under 31 USC §5314. A separate Form 8938 may be required under IRC §6038D at higher thresholds. Bittner v. United States (2023) held that non-willful FBAR penalties are capped per form per year, not per account — reducing exposure significantly for taxpayers with multiple accounts. Willful penalties remain severe (greater of $129,210 or 50 percent of the account balance). The Streamlined Domestic Offshore Procedures allow non-willful filers to come into compliance with reduced penalties. We routinely handle these for Orange County clients with family accounts in Iran, Vietnam, Hong Kong, the UAE, Singapore, Taiwan, and Mexico.

Often yes, for some period of time. California uses the domicile test at Cal. Rev. & Tax. Code §17014, fleshed out in FTB Publication 1031, which weighs nine factors: time in state, location of family, location of primary residence, where you hold a driver's license, where you register vehicles, where you vote, where you bank, where you maintain professional licenses, and where you have business and social ties. Orange County moves to Henderson, Las Vegas, Austin, Naples, Bellevue, and Seattle draw FTB residency audits two to three years later. A clean break documented at the time of the move — sold OC primary residence, surrendered CA driver's license, registered vehicles in the new state, changed voter registration, moved bank accounts, transferred medical and dental care — is the strongest defense. Keeping the Newport Beach condo as a rental, the kids in OC schools, or the Yorba Linda golf-club membership undermines the position.

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. 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 is. For an Orange County filer with a Newport Beach or Irvine home, this matters: California's equity calculation often produces a higher minimum offer than the federal equivalent.

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. An Orange County filer who watches the federal CSED expire in 2026 may still face FTB collection until 2036 on the same year.

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 Orange County small business 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 an Anaheim restaurant or Santa Ana retail business that closes with unpaid 941s, the owner usually faces all three exposures simultaneously.

IRC §1061, added by the 2017 TCJA, requires a three-year holding period for "applicable partnership interests" (carried-interest stakes in investment-services partnerships) to qualify for long-term capital-gain treatment. Hold under three years and the gain is recharacterized as short-term capital gain — taxed at ordinary rates. The provision targets the private-equity, venture-capital, hedge-fund, and real-estate-fund manager population. Newport Beach and Costa Mesa host one of the densest PE and venture-fund clusters on the West Coast outside of the Bay Area. California layers its 13.3 percent top rate on the recharacterized ordinary income regardless of federal treatment, so a holding-period miss compounds painfully. We coordinate with fund counsel on entity-level structuring and partner-level reporting.

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. This hits Orange County's diaspora communities particularly hard: Persian-American, Vietnamese-American, Korean-American, and Mexican-American families with annual cross-border travel commitments cannot afford to learn about a certification when they arrive at the airport. The California FTB does not certify to the State Department but can independently trigger driver's-license suspension under Cal. Veh. Code §13205 in certain circumstances.

AB 5 (effective 2020) codified the ABC test from the Dynamex decision into Cal. Lab. Code §2775. To classify a worker as a 1099 contractor in California, the hiring entity must show that (A) the worker is free from control and direction, (B) the work falls outside the usual course of the hiring entity's business, and (C) the worker is engaged in an independently established trade. EDD audits use this framework. A reclassification can produce back UI, ETT, SDI, and PIT withholding for three years, plus penalties under Cal. Unemp. Ins. Code §1126 and interest. Orange County industries hit hardest: Irvine and Newport Beach consulting and marketing firms, OC construction-trade subcontracting, real-estate brokerages, beauty-services, and healthcare staffing. Prop 22 carved out app-based drivers; other industries have statutory carve-outs at §2775 et seq. The defense is exemption analysis and ABC-test documentation.

No. The firm is headquartered at 1100 S. Robertson Boulevard in Los Angeles, but we represent clients throughout Orange County by phone, secure document portal, and email. Most engagements never require an in-person meeting. When in-person matters — an FTB Santa Ana field-office conference, a Tax Court trial in Los Angeles, a U.S. District Court appearance in Santa Ana, or a strategy meeting on a complex matter — we coordinate appropriately. Some Orange County clients prefer to drive up the 405 to the LA office; others meet by Zoom. The work product is identical either way.

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.