By Lynn Freer, EA
Publisher

Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia has sponsored a bill that would exempt tampons and other feminine hygiene products from sales and use tax. As if this isn't strange enough, BOE Chairman Jerome Horton weighed in suggesting the bill be amended to apply to low-income women only, expressing concern that the bill would grant a tax break to affluent women. We asked ourselves how the income-level exemption would work. Here are some suggestions:

• Require a copy of the tax return to present to the clerk at the store;
• Provide tampon stamps to low-income women;
• Have a tampon tax credit on the FTB return; or
• File a claim for refund from the BOE for refund of the tax.

The role-playing video game "The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt" was named 2015's game of the year by gaming news websites GameSpot and IGN.

In the game's "Hearts of Stone" expansion pack, players who took part in the moneymaking scheme are tracked down by in-game tax collector characters.¹

The game's Deputy Tax Enumerator asks the character about the moneymaking activities that have raised suspicions. The game's IRS-equivalent, Revenue and Customs for Occupied Temeria, knows all about these other sources of income even without the filing of a Form 1099-MISC.

Questions include "Have you at any time engaged in the wholesale trade of rawhide in the White Orchard area?" and "During the current fiscal year, have you engaged in the acquisition of bivalves with the express intention of selling the pearls therein?"

By Kathryn Zdan, EA
Editorial Director

California may join the ranks of 27 other states that have banned Palcohol — freeze dried alcohol that, when combined with water, reconstitutes itself into an instant cocktail. Fast! Easy! Efficient! Right? Wrong.

AB 1554 and SB 819 have been introduced into the California Legislature to ban the substance. The bills' authors cite low cost, easy access, and similarity to a Kool-Aid packet as just a few of the ways they believe Palcohol could seem attractive to minors.¹ However, Palcohol advocates question those reasons, stating that it's not cheaper than liquid alcohol, would be sold in liquor stores just like liquor, and banning the substance would only create more demand.²

Powdered alcohol is not new — it was first introduced to the U.S. in 1977 as the product "SureShot" by Japanese food additive company Sato Foods Industries.³ In 2015, the U.S. Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau approved Palcohol for sale in the U.S., and by the end of 2015, most states had addressed the product with legislation either to ban or regulate it.