california state taxes

SACRAMENTO, Calif., April 14 /PRNewswire/ — A press release from the California State Board of Equalization (BOE) last week reminding dog and cat breeders to pay sales tax on their pet sales was praised today by a taxpayer advocacy group concerned with animal welfare.
Judie Mancuso, Campaign Director for California Taxpayers for Safe & Healthy Pets, a group working to pass a tax-saving spay and neuter bill that would help government enforce the BOE regulation, said the BOE action "will give the pet breeding industry no excuse to skip out on their taxes, and will help bring puppy mills — like the ones on the recent Oprah show — out of the darkness and into the light."
Mancuso is a co-sponsor of Assembly Bill 1634 California Healthy Pets Act (http://www.cahealthypets.com/) carried by Assemblyman Lloyd Levine (D-Van Nuys), which has passed the full Assembly and is awaiting a hearing in the Senate.
"The fact that up to one million dogs and cats enter our shelters, the needless killing of over 500,000 healthy pets in California and the waste of millions of taxpayer dollars each year must end," Mancuso said.
The reiteration by the BOE of the tax responsibilities of breeders, all too often ignored, helps illustrate just how widespread and costly the underground economy caused by unregistered pet sellers is for California.
The BOE press release stated that, "BOE estimates approximately $14 million in sales tax is due but goes uncollected every year because some pet sellers are not properly reporting and paying sales tax on their pet sales."
"It’s an easy equation," Mancuso stated. "Right now, California taxpayers are paying over a quarter of a billion dollars each year to house and euthanize healthy pets while our state faces a huge fiscal deficit; this is simply taxpayer waste and an ethical nightmare".

earthtimes.org


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