Key Points In addition to five key victories for housing advocates discussed in an earlier alert, the California Senate passed many additional housing bills not included in their “Building Opportunities for All” Housing Package. Bills from the Housing Package that would have approved an affordable housing bond (SB 5), residential housing on certain commercial sites (SB 6), and local housing data reporting requirements (SB 477) all failed to win approval ...
In a slightly surprising, but nevertheless welcome, South African 2020 Budget Speech today, the Honourable Minister of Finance announced that there would be no significant tax increases to the major taxes for the forthcoming tax year. Widely anticipated increases to value-added tax (“VAT”), income tax, capital gains tax and estate duty did not materialise ...
With the New Year, California rings in a lot of legislative changes, including a new standard for evaluating independent contractor classifications. Here is what you need to know: Independent Contractors Effective Jan. 1, 2020, Assembly Bill 5 (AB-5) became law in California by adding section 2750.3 to the Labor Code. AB-5 is the legislative response to the California Supreme Court decision in Dynamex v ...
The Pennsylvania General Assembly has concluded the legislative session. COVID-19 significantly changed the format and content of the legislative session. The operating rules were amended to permit remote voting, and the legislative focus centered on the impact of COVID-19 on schools, communities, businesses and the Pennsylvania budget for the FY 2020-2021. Below is a snapshot of some of the key areas addressed during this session ...
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently issued its Annual Report to Congress, which provides statistics concerning bid protest filings for Fiscal Year (FY) 2020, including the number of protests filed and sustained. The chart below, included in GAO's Annual Report, summarizes this information. Click here to view the summary table As shown above, most of the data points remained constant from the prior year ...
The 2020 election in California as pertains to national politics was never in doubt, but despite being a deeply blue state, Californians continued to show their divide on taxing businesses and making major changes to the statewide tax code. Several ballot initiatives, both at the state and municipal level, would have radically altered how businesses and executives are taxed ...
Pension reform 1. New retirement age in Russia Starting from January 1, 2019, the retirement age willincrease by one year during each year of the transition period, until the retirement age reaches 65 for men and 60 for women. The Law stipulates that men who reached 60 years old and have had 42 years of work experience, and women aged 55 years old and have had 37 years of work experience are entitled to retire earlier — 24 months prior to reaching standardretirement age ...
Dinsmore’s Government Relations team was involved in several significant legislative initiatives affecting the health care sector during the 2019 regular session of the West Virginia legislature. Most notably, Dinsmore was involved in the passage of HB 2010, relating to foster care ...
Flu season is in full swing. with the Center for Disease Control (CDC) confirming over 155,000 positive U.S. cases of influenza since Sept. 29, 2019. Simultaneously, the coronavirus COVID-19 has spread rapidly across China, with at least 70,000 confirmed cases, including 15 confirmed cases in the United States. In response, employers need to be prepared to assist employees in staying safe and complying with potential quarantines. Beginning Feb ...
Governor Newsom has signed several bills that impact the cannabis industry by providing relief from federal income tax deduction limitations, encouraging minority participation, encouraging union membership, and clarifying some other existing regulations. The bills include: Assembly Bill 37 repeals the limitation on deductions for business expenses for cannabis businesses, which had previously conformed to Internal Revenue Code section 280E for state tax purposes ...
The next 60-day regular session of the West Virginia Legislature commences on Wednesday, January 9, 2019. While much of the nation seemed transfixed by the recent electoral changes, the most significant political change in the West Virginia Legislature actually preceded the 2018 general election. Indeed, the House of Delegates elected a new Speaker, Roger Hanshaw (R-Clay), in August 2018 to replace Tim Armstead who resigned to accept an appointment to the Supreme Court of Appeals ...
The 2017 regular session of the West Virginia Legislature saw several changes in laws relevant to employers. Changes of interest to employers include the West Virginia Safer Workplace Act, Second Chance for Employment Act, West Virginia Workplace Freedom Act, West Virginia Medical Cannabis Act, striking employees and unemployment benefits, Physicians Freedom of Practice Act, and bonds for wages and benefits ...
The Indonesian Government has released the long-awaited revision to the Negative List (“DNI”). The revised regulation (Presidential Regulation No. 44/2016) was promulgated on 18 May 2016 and circulated to the public on 24 May. The DNI regulates the sectors which are closed, open, or conditionally open to investment. The DNI revision is keenly awaited as it stipulates, amongst other matters, restrictions on foreign participation in various business activities in Indonesia ...
Further to our client alert of 25 May, we include here the full list of changes to the 2014 Negative List (DNI), as contained in Presidential Regulation No. 44/2016 and its attachments. Note, again, that existing investors’ licensing will be grandfathered. ASEAN investors have preferential arrangements in many cases ...
Besides other exemptions contemplated under the law that approved the 2016 budget for Macau SAR (Law No. 15/2015, of 28 December 2015), the core special exemptions applicable cover Corporate Tax, Professional Tax and Property Tax. Corporate Tax The taxable profits accrued in the companies’ annual accounts re ...
2016 California Labor and Employment Legislation SB 3 Raises California's Minimum Wage SB 3 will increase the state minimum wage to $15.00 per hour over the next six years. The bill sets two minimum wage rate hikes, depending on whether an employer has 26 or more, or 25 or fewer, employees. All employers in the state must comply with the new minimum wage law ...
Some favourable news on the global economic front has been trickling in. Markets around the world rallied as the US avoided the fiscal cliff-dive by a nanosecond; China's economy is showing signs of renewed strength, with the powerful manufacturing sector now performing at its best levels in almost two years; and share prices in most of Europe, Britain and even Japan have been trading solidly higher over the past few months ...
In September, the National Customs and Tax Authority - DIAN - presented the third draft of the new Customs Statute, which will regulate most of Colombia’s customs law. Although scholars and business associations have presented their comments to the project, the draft seems to be definitive for the most part ...
Yet again, this year has been a busy one for employers, HR teams and their lawyers: employment law changes and decisions from the Courts have kept us all on our toes! Here is a reminder of some of the most significant cases and legal developments of 2012.1. The unfair dismissal qualifying period increased to two years for those employed on or after 6 April 2012. The qualifying period for employees whose employment started before this date remains 12 months.2 ...
On May 26, 2011, in Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America et al. v. Michael B. Whiting et al., 131 S.Ct. 1968 (2011), the Supreme Court of the United States upheld states’ rights to mandate use of the employment verification program (E-Verify) organized by the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Social Security Administration (SSA) ...
In light of the ineffectiveness of tax litigation and the increased mistrust of taxpayers in relation to tax decisions, with the decision-makers very often hiding behind mere decisions of form, it is imperative that we weigh up alternative methods for resolving tax disputes, such as mediation, conciliation, and tax arbitration itself, in order to deal with disputes accumulated and arising out of relations between the State and the taxpayer, thus reversing the fe
First, the good news: No estate tax on individuals who die during 2010; No generation-skipping transfer (“GST”) tax on “transfers” during 2010; Tax rate on gifts during 2010 is 35% (rather than 45%); and Congress appears less likely to take any action to retroactively change these rules ...
The past year has seen substantial activity by the federal courts in guarding against government overreach in False Claims Act cases. One of the principal areas courts have focused on is the FCA's knowledge requirement — i.e., FCA liability can only be imposed where a person violates the act knowingly. Two recent decisions, from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and the U.S ...
In this digest, we review key developments in the Russian migration legislation for the first quarter of 2019. 1. The Russian Government updated the list of documents required for the migration registration of foreign nationals Starting from March 20 of 2019,the Ministry of Internal Affairs extended the list of documents required for the migration registration of foreign nationals ...
