Tax Attorney in San Bernardino, California

The U.S. Tax Court holds Southern California trial sessions at the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse, 255 E. Temple Street, Los Angeles CA 90012 — about 60 miles west of San Bernardino on I-10. A San Bernardino petitioner designates "Los Angeles, California" as the place of trial on the petition under Tax Court Rule 140. The court calendars multiple Los Angeles sessions per year given the docket volume. San Bernardino petitioners may also designate San Diego if docket timing or witness logistics warrants it, but Los Angeles is almost always the choice because of distance and the volume of Southern California and Inland Empire issues (logistics 1099, AB 5, FBAR for Mexican-American filers, short-term-rental matters from the mountain communities) that the LA calendar handles.

The FTB San Bernardino Field Office sits at 464 W. 4th Street, San Bernardino CA. This is the home FTB office for San Bernardino 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. Most resolution work runs by phone, secure portal through MyFTB, and written submission, but in-person hearings and conferences happen at 464 W. 4th Street when calendaring requires. Verify the current public hours through ftb.ca.gov/help/contact/locations.html before any walk-in visit.

California's ABC test, codified at Cal. Lab. Code §2775 after AB 5, presumes a worker is an employee unless the hiring entity shows all three of: (A) the worker is free from the hirer's control and direction, (B) the worker performs work outside the usual course of the hirer's business, and (C) the worker is customarily engaged in an independently established trade. Inland Empire owner-operator drivers in the Amazon DSP, UPS, FedEx Ground, and intermodal-drayage networks regularly fail prong B because driving freight is the core business of the hirer. EDD audits the prior three years, assessing back UI, ETT, SDI, and PIT plus penalties under UIC §1126. The federal counterpart audit produces FICA, FUTA, and federal income-tax withholding exposure, often with IRC §3509 reduced-rate relief if the entity has not been intentionally misclassifying. The matter is rarely just state or just federal.

IRC §280A(d)(1) treats a dwelling unit as a residence if the owner's personal use exceeds the greater of 14 days or 10 percent of the days it is rented at fair-market rates. Once the unit is a "residence," deductions for the rental are capped at rental income — no loss is allowed. Big Bear and Lake Arrowhead owners who use the cabin themselves for ski weekends, Fourth of July, Christmas, and family events frequently cross both thresholds. IRC §469's passive-activity rules then apply on top: short-term rentals with an average rental period of seven days or less under Reg. §1.469-1T(e)(3)(ii) sit outside the passive presumption, requiring material participation to take losses against active income. Real-estate-professional status under §469(c)(7) is the high-water reclassification. Mountain-community STR audits frequently combine the §280A personal-use math with the §469 character math in the same notice; the two are decided together.

The City of San Bernardino filed Chapter 9 in August 2012, the second-largest U.S. municipal bankruptcy at filing time, and the plan of adjustment took effect in 2017 with significant adjustments to general-obligation bondholders, certificate-of-participation holders, and pension-obligation bondholders. Resident holders generally recognize the realized loss in the year the plan becomes effective: the basis (your original cost, adjusted for amortization of premium under §171 or accrued OID under §1272) minus the value received in the workout equals the capital loss reported on Form 8949 and Schedule D. Where the plan exchanged old bonds for new bonds at a discount, ongoing market-discount accrual under IRC §1276 produces ordinary income on later sale or maturity. Bond-fund 1099 reissuance frequently restates these amounts years after the original filing; if the IRS sends a CP2000 that does not match what you reported, the answer is to pull the corrected 1099 series and rework Schedule D rather than ignore the notice.

San Bernardino County covers 20,105 square miles — larger than the entire states of Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Hawaii, Connecticut, Delaware, and Rhode Island. The county Assessor at 222 W. Hospitality Lane, 4th Floor administers Prop 13 base-year values and Prop 19 parent-child transfers across that footprint, from the warehouse corridor along I-10 and I-215, through the mountain communities of Big Bear and Lake Arrowhead, the High Desert towns of Victorville, Apple Valley, Hesperia, and Adelanto, and out to the Arizona and Nevada state lines at Needles. The Assessment Appeals Board under R&TC §1603-1611 hears reassessment petitions for all of it. San Bernardino County uses a November 30 regular-roll filing deadline. Supplemental and roll-correction notices have their own 60-day windows. The wide geography means the comparable-sales analysis for an appeal on a Big Bear cabin is fundamentally different from the analysis on a Verdemont single-family or a Tippecanoe warehouse — do not borrow comps from across the county.

Locum tenens, contract, and per-diem physicians at Loma Linda University Medical Center, St. Bernardine Medical Center, Arrowhead Regional Medical Center, Community Hospital of San Bernardino, and Kaiser Permanente Fontana receive 1099-NEC compensation that often runs $300,000 to $500,000 annually. The three rate-stacking concerns are: federal income tax at the top brackets, self-employment tax under IRC §1401 at 15.3 percent on the first $168,600 (2024 wage base, indexed) and 2.9 percent thereafter plus 0.9 percent Additional Medicare on amounts over $200,000 single / $250,000 joint, and California income tax topping at 13.3 percent. Quarterly Form 1040-ES estimates fix the IRS side; FTB Form 540-ES fixes the California side. S-corp election under §1362 (Form 2553) can split the income into reasonable compensation plus distribution where the practice supports it, lowering SE tax exposure — subject to reasonable-compensation scrutiny under Watson v. Commissioner and the IRS's S-corp employment-tax campaign.

Possibly. California's nine-factor residency analysis under R&TC §17014 and the OTA's Appeal of Bragg (2003-SBE-002) and Appeal of Bindley (2018) look at where you physically live the most, where your family lives, where your real property sits, where your employment is, where your bank accounts and brokerage accounts sit, where you vote, where your vehicles are registered, where your driver's license is issued, and the duration and pattern of your presence in each state. San Bernardino taxpayers who relocate to Phoenix, Scottsdale, Henderson, Las Vegas, Boise, or Texas while keeping a Verdemont, Highland, Redlands, Loma Linda, or Big Bear residence, a California driver's license, California-registered vehicles, California medical providers, and active social ties in the Inland Empire generally do not extinguish California domicile by signing a new state's lease. The FTB takes information-sharing data from CalDMV, county recorders, escrow companies, and the federal information-exchange agreement and starts the audit from a checklist of indicators rather than from a single date. The fix is to consciously close the California connections, not to assume that physical absence does the work alone.

San Bernardino's Mexican-American community is one of California's largest. U.S. persons with financial interest in or signature authority over foreign accounts aggregating more than $10,000 at any point in the year must file FinCEN Form 114 (FBAR) under 31 USC §5314. Form 8938, Statement of Specified Foreign Financial Assets, attaches to Form 1040 under IRC §6038D where balances meet higher thresholds ($50,000/$100,000 single domestic, $200,000/$300,000 single abroad, with married thresholds higher). Banamex, BBVA Mexico, Banorte, hometown credit unions in Jalisco, Michoacan, Sinaloa, Guanajuato, Zacatecas, and Sonora, family ranch and ejido interests, and inherited accounts all count. Streamlined Filing Compliance Procedures (Domestic for U.S.-resident filers, Foreign for non-residents) clear non-willful violations at a 5-percent miscellaneous-offshore penalty (Domestic) or zero penalty (Foreign) plus prior-year tax and interest. Willful exposure under 31 USC §5321(a)(5)(C) reaches 50 percent of the highest balance per year. The path matters; we run the eligibility analysis before filing anything.

90 days from the date stamped on the Notice of Deficiency (NOD or "90-day letter") to file a petition with the U.S. Tax Court under IRC §6213(a) — 150 days if the notice is addressed to a person outside the United States. The deadline is jurisdictional and the Tax Court cannot extend it. A San Bernardino petitioner designates "Los Angeles, California" as the place of trial. Filing the petition stops the IRS from assessing or collecting on the deficiency until the case resolves. Missing the 90 days forfeits prepayment review; you then either pay the deficiency and sue for refund in U.S. District Court or the Court of Federal Claims, or wait for collection action and assert other defenses through CDP. The cleanest path is to file the petition timely.

60 days from the date on the Notice of Proposed Assessment to file a protest under Cal. Rev. & Tax. Code §19041. The protest goes to the FTB and triggers a Protest Hearing Officer review. If the FTB issues a Notice of Action against you, an OTA petition follows within 30 days under R&TC §19045. The OTA is an independent tribunal that replaced the Board of Equalization on tax appeals in 2018; San Bernardino petitioners draw the Los Angeles hearing room at 355 South Grand Avenue. If you miss the 60 days, the assessment becomes a final assessment and the FTB moves to collection. The fix at that stage is much narrower — usually a claim for refund under R&TC §19306 after payment, or a compromise under §19443 based on collectibility.

For non-filers, the IRS generally accepts six years of back returns under IRM 1.2.1.6.18 as the compliance bar. The FTB looks back four years by default under R&TC §19057, longer for non-filed or fraud years. The sequence is: (1) pull IRS Account Transcripts and Wage-and-Income Transcripts across all open years to confirm what the IRS already knows; (2) pull FTB MyFTB records to confirm what the FTB has; (3) prepare and file the six federal years and at least the four California years; (4) once compliance is current, request a Collection Information Statement-based resolution (IA, CNC, or OIC) sized to your facts. Filing the missing returns first is what unlocks every relief option. Refunds older than the §6511 three-year window (two years from payment if later) are forfeited.

The Trust Fund Recovery Penalty under IRC §6672 is the IRS mechanism to reach individuals personally for unpaid employment-tax withholdings the business failed to remit. The penalty equals 100 percent of the federal income-tax withholding plus the employee share of FICA — the "trust fund" portion of Form 941. A Revenue Officer conducts a Form 4180 interview to identify "responsible persons" (anyone with check-signing authority, the ability to determine which creditors get paid, or operational control over payroll) and to establish "willfulness" (knowing failure to pay over while paying other creditors). The TFRP is jointly and severally assessable against every responsible person. Common targets in San Bernardino are warehouse-staffing LLC owners, drayage and owner-operator-trucking LLC principals, restaurant owners on Hospitality Lane, and construction-subcontractor principals across Rialto, Colton, and Fontana. Defense centers on (1) responsible-person status, (2) willfulness, and (3) the underlying corporate liability. EDD asserts a parallel state TFRP under Cal. Unemp. Ins. Code §1735.

IRC §139 excludes "qualified disaster relief payments" from gross income when they reimburse or pay reasonable and necessary personal, family, living, or funeral expenses incurred as a result of a qualified disaster, or expenses to repair or rehabilitate damaged property. The federal terrorism-related "qualified disaster" classification under §139(c) extended to the December 2015 Inland Regional Center attack at 1365 S. Waterman Avenue. Victims, families of the deceased, and first responders who received employer-funded grief counseling, family-support payments, charitable-foundation distributions, GoFundMe-style proceeds, and survivor benefits in the aftermath generally exclude those amounts from income, while medical-expense reimbursements and property-replacement reimbursements have their own narrower rules. Schedule A medical deductions are reduced by amounts already reimbursed. The matter still surfaces in late audits where the 1099 reporting and the §139 exclusion do not match; we reconcile the documentation and respond.

CDTFA does not operate a standalone San Bernardino district office. The closest field office for most San Bernardino taxpayers is the Riverside District Office at 3737 Main Street, Suite 1000, Riverside CA 92501; the West Covina office at 1521 W. Cameron Avenue is the secondary option for taxpayers closer to the LA-county line. Sales-tax audits on Hospitality Lane restaurants and retail, Highland Avenue retail, Mt. Vernon Avenue, North E Street, and warehouse-corridor wholesalers route through Riverside. The audit typically uses a test-period markup methodology or a third-party-information match. We file Petitions for Redetermination within 30 days of a deficiency determination under R&TC §6561, escalate to an appeals conference, and take the matter to the OTA if needed. The OTA hears CDTFA appeals at the Los Angeles hearing room at 355 South Grand Avenue.

No — California is a single state for income-tax purposes, not city-by-city. If you live in Hesperia, Apple Valley, Victorville, or Adelanto and commute to a job in San Bernardino, Ontario, Rancho Cucamonga, or Riverside, you are a California resident and file Form 540 reporting all worldwide income. There is no city-resident overlay. What does matter: (1) if you commute over the Pass and into Nevada (Mesquite, Henderson, Las Vegas) for work while keeping your High Desert home, you are still a California resident under §17014 and California taxes your Nevada-source wages, with no Nevada credit because Nevada has no income tax; (2) if you work for a multi-state employer with operations in both California and Nevada or Arizona, sourcing of compensation under R&TC §17951 and the days-in-state rule become relevant. The Cajon Pass commuter is a California state filer; the dual-state pattern is what creates audit exposure.

No. The firm is headquartered at 1100 S. Robertson Boulevard in Los Angeles, and we represent clients across all 58 California counties. San Bernardino 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 IRS San Bernardino TAC at 290 N. D Street, the FTB San Bernardino Field Office at 464 W. 4th Street, the CDTFA Riverside District Office at 3737 Main Street, the San Bernardino County Assessment Appeals Board at 222 W. Hospitality Lane, the U.S. Tax Court Los Angeles trial sessions at the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building, the George E. Brown Jr. Federal Building in Riverside for CDCA Eastern Division matters, and the San Bernardino County Superior Court at 247 W. Third Street as case calendaring requires. Los Angeles is roughly an hour west of San Bernardino on I-10, and Riverside is twenty minutes south on I-215 — both within day-trip range when a case requires in-person appearance.