California's Health and Safety Code Section 14855, contains the
following provision: The officers and members of unpaid fire companies
regularly
organized, and exempt firemen, are entitled to the following
privileges and exemptions: (a) Exemption from payment of poll tax,
road tax, and head tax of every description.
Poll Taxes are history, but I would like to know specific California
"Head" and "Road" taxes that might exist under different names which
could be avoided using this statute. |
Request for Question Clarification by
pafalafa-ga
on
30 May 2003 09:20 PDT
Servinggladly-ga,
After fielding your other question, I was hoping I'd be able to run
down an answer to this one as well. I asked the appropriate
specialist in the California Legislative Analysts Office [
http://lao.ca.gov/ ]about the meaning of the provision, and this was
his response:
"I suspect that these are portions of a statute that are no longer
applicable. California does not have a poll tax, a head tax (which is
similar to a poll tax) or a road tax. If you have the West's
publication of California Codes, they may give some legislative
history which may be helpful, but again, California does not have any
of these taxes at the state level."
It didn't seem like quite the type of information you were looking
for, so I'm posting it here, FYI, rather than as a formal answer to
your question.
If anything else turns up, I'll let you know.
|
Clarification of Question by
servinggladly-ga
on
30 May 2003 10:55 PDT
Good to hear from you again Pafalafa.
While I also found that California officially has no road or head(per
capita) tax, since the statute reads: "...of every description.", I
would like a savy analysis of whether any of the money transfered from
my pocket to a local or state government entity via direct or indirect
taxes, fees, charges, assessments as well as tuition, enrollment or
registration for public schools and colleges might meet the legal or
historical sense of being within the broadest definition of road or
head tax. I assume the FTB would take a position of denial, though I
am willing to test selected issues if a decent case could be made.
|
Request for Question Clarification by
pafalafa-ga
on
30 May 2003 14:00 PDT
Servinggladly,
You do like the push the envelope, don't you.
I think a reasonable case can be made that fire fighters and active
military personnel are exempt from the $0.18 per gallon tax on
gasoline, since this can readily be construed as a "road tax". Others
will respond that "no it's not...there are no road taxes in
California", and it's unlikely the matter could be resolved short of
taking it to court.
If you'd like me to lay out the rationale for this as an answer to
your question (including relevant cites to the Califoria code), just
let me know and I'll be happy to take a crack at it.
But be forewarned...there are no guarantees I can give as to what the
eventual outcome might be should you decide to push the issue.
|
