Transcripts For SFGTV BOS Budget And Finance Committee 11117

And i want to thank the clerk of our committee as well as mark and sfgtv for covering the meeting today. Do you have any announces . Silence all cell phones and Electronic Devices and completed speaker cards and documents to be included as part of the file should be submitted to the clerk, and the items acted tonight today will be on the january, 24th agenda unless otherwise stated would you call item one . Resolution authorizing the Fire Department to donate a retired pickup truck to the San Francisco Firefighters Local 798 thank you. And happy new year, mr. Chair, and supervisors. Mark from the Fire Department to present on the next four items actually. The first is the donation of an old retired from regular use pickup truck for the department to local seven 98. And to assist with their holiday toy Donation Program and it is actually year round, and assisting families in need and this truck is as i mentioned no longer in service for the department and in need of mant nens and they have agreed to take on all of the issues and liable and i am happy to answer the questions that you may have. Thanks, colleagues questions . We will move on to Public Comment in anybody wish to comment on item one . Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. Clerk, could you list me as a sponsor on this item . Yes. Colleagues, get a motion or any comments . Motion to sent forth the resolution to the full board with positive recommendation. Madam clerk will you call two. Resolution retroactively authorizing the Fire Department to accept and expend a donation of 12,000 from Firemans Fund Insurance Company for the development of a recruitment vid video. Good morning, again, mark from the Fire Department, this next item for a variety of reasons was never formally accepted and so i apologize for the delay in that, this is annual indication of 12,000 for the Firemans Fund that was exspended for the recruitment video, and this was shown the entry level, firefighter information sessions throughout the city and was a joint effort with the administration, and local, 798 and by the department and the dhr from the recruitment efforts chlts thanks very much, seeing no questions, move on to Public Comment. Anybody wish to comment . Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. Go ahead and move it out of committee with the positive recommendation. Motioned by yee and seconded by tang and take that without objection. Will you call item three . Resolution authorizing the Fire Department to accept and expend a donation of 54,927. 09 pursuant to the order of final distribution of the estate of nguey woo. Welcome back. Good afternoon, again, the donation that the department was graciously listed as a beneficiary of the woo estate and so the department is thankful of that and there is no sprefk instructions on how it was to be spent and i followed up with the Attorneys Office to that extent and in the department intends to use that money for the fire education and Safety Training materials, and additional out reach materials for the public consumption and i am happy to answer any questions that you may have. Any questions . Seeing none, we will open it up to Public Comment, and anyone wish to comment on three. Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. I will motion to send this forthwith the positive recommendation, and thanks the family for this generous donations. Will you call number four . Resolution retroactively authorizing the Fire Department to accept and expend a donation of 25,000 from aaa northern california, nevada, utah for Neighborhood Emergency Response Team supplies and Public Safety Education Programs and materi s materials. Okay. Welcome back. Good morning, mark the Fire Department and the next is em and it was never approved and it came in separate increment and working with the Controllers Office and the recommendation for forward approval, and received, 25,000 from aaa insurance, and a portion of this was set aside for the Public Safety out reach materials and training materials. And approximately 10,000 was set aside for our Neighborhood Emergency Response Team Training Program to provide the free supplies for the public. Happy to answer any questions. Any questions colleagues . Seeing none we will move to Public Comment. Anybody wish to comment on four . Comment is closed. I motion to move this out of committee with the positive recommendation to the full board. Motioned by yee and seconded by tang and take it without objection. Thank you, would you call five . Ordinance amending the business and tax regulations code to modify the quarterly filing and payment requirements for payroll expense taxes and gross receipts taxes, to clarify the requirements for obtaining a return filing extension, and to expressly permit taxpayers to apply refunds of the Business Registration fee, the payroll expense tax, and the gross receipts tax to subsequent tax perio periods. Okay. Welcome miss free. Good morning, supervisors from the office of the treasure you are. As you are well aware by this point the voters passed the gross receipts in 2012, and our office has been consumed with the implementation of the law, and it is a complicated law as you think that you know but we have been successful of building, the systems for the internal use and tax payers and now that he we have a few years, we are starting to get wakes to make it easier for taxpayers and. And we started by working on changes and we put new Business Online and inperson, assistance stays and, we have support videos for tax payers and multiple languages and we have been working with a number of City Department to share data, so that the tax payers will have a more stream lined experience with the city and the county and now we are coming to you to amend the parts of the law itself. And i thank you for your patience and i know that they are confusing. This item before you will modify the quarterly file and payment requirements for payroll expense tax and gross receipts tax and clarify the requirement foz requesting an extension and permit the tax payers for the fee and the gross receipts tax to subsequent tax periods and effects only in a Million Dollars in gross receipts and Residential Land lords and will modify the quarterly payments for the payroll expense and the gross receipts taxes in several ways, first, lessers of real estate will be exempt, for making the quarterly payments if the gross receipts in the city shown are less than 1 million as adjusted for inflation under the cold. Many of you have sent feedback from the land lords who are at this point on the hook of submitting payments of 5, or 6 a quarter which does not seem to be the best use of anyones time. Second, rather than generally only applies to larger businesses and the businesses over a Million Dollars. With the big exception being Residential Land lords so that has been since the beginning of the source of a lot of confusion and frustration, because tax payer received bills, and it is confusing and it does not understand, it is not worth the paper it is printed on and kind of the complaints and so that is number one. And the Carry Forward is something that has also been of interest to the tax payers, and our deadline for gross receipt and payroll is at the end of february and that is earlier than the irs deadline and so many of these businesses have not finished calculating their San Francisco gross receipts by the time that they file and if they have to file for an extension and they need to pay at the time that they file and often we have businesses submitting more money than they think they will owe just to be safe what ends up happening is by the time that they file their actual gross receipts or payroll, if they are lower we are forced to refund and those refund checks tend to hit right when the First Quarter payments are due and so we are in the situation where the city is refunding money and accepting money from the same businesses at the same time. And it would save a lot of effort on our part but also a lot of ease for the tax payers if we could hold on to the funds and apply them to the future payments. Great, thank you. Supervisor yee . Is there some time limit in terms of anticipating to holding on to the funds . I cant imagine that someone would pay so much that, you know, it would be enough to carry them for several quarters and if that happens, and would you hold on to the funds for that . We would, we would apply to the future obligation and so it is at the tax payers request and so it will be carried forward or they can request a refund and so it is up to the business to determine which is best for them, but these are businesses that have several obligations over the course of the year. Several Tax Obligations. Thank you. Okay. Thanks very much and we move on to Public Comment on item five and anybody wish to comment . Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. Go ahead and recommend that we move this out of committee, with the positive recommendation to the full board. Motioned by supervisor yee and tang and take that without objection. And madam clerk, will you call item seven . Ordinance amending the business and tax regulations code to remove the 100 minimum penalty from one of the penalties for failing to register with the Tax Collector; and to remove the fee and administrative requirements for obtaining a duplicate registration certificate. Okay, so this item is here and we are going to entertain a motion to continue this item to the budget dmitty meeting for january 25th. Colleagues any questions about that at this point . Okay. And i assume we are all in concur ans with that. It is actually the department suggestion, and so we will move on to Public Comment, anybody wish to comment on item seven . Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. Could i have a motion to continue this to january 25th. So moved. Motioned by tang. Seconded by yee, we can take that without objection. Madam clerk will you call eight . Ordinance amending the business and tax regulations code to limit the late fee on unpaid administrative penalties to 40 of the administrative penalty assessed; and to modify the methods by which an administrative citation may be served. Okay, thanks, amanda welcome back. Thank you, i have been in the chamber several times over the past few years to assure all of you that the business and tax regulation code provides our office with significant numbers of mechanisms to penalize bad actors particularly businesses who willfully skirt their Tax Obligations and as you know some of them over taxes have become public, but most of what we do is confidential. So i am here to talk to you about a fairly little known piece of our code, one of the mechanisms that we use to bring the smaller businesses in compliance and these are administrative citations. We issue these to businesses to enforce violations of the business and tax code, including business without certificate of authority, or a Business Registration certificate. Existing law permits us to serve in two ways, we can post the citation in a place on the property. Or serve the citation by first class mail. The proposed legislation will eliminate the requirement that it be posted to a place on the property and allow us to send these via regular mail. Unlike other penalties in our code, administrative citations can be issued each and every day that a violation exists. And payment of the penalty does not excuse the failure to correct the violation, nor does it bar any future enforcement by the city. Right now, the late fee is ten percent of the penalty per month. And this is applied cumulatively, and so as you can imagine, these penalties add up very, very quickly for businesses. And the proposed ordinance would limit the late fees for the failure to pay the administrative penalty assessed by means of the administrative citation, to 40 percent, and this is a similar cap that exists throughout our business tax system. The treasurer is confident that reducing the penalties for citations and stream lining the filing processes is not only fair but will facility the Tax Compliance and make this a more effective tool, thank you. Okay, thanks very much, colleagues any questions on item eight . I will note that we skipped 6, and so we have to hop back to that, my bad. Seeing none, we will move to punl comment. Anybody wish to comment on item eight . Moving out of the committee. And seconded by tang and take it without objection. Madam clerk, could you go back to item six . Item six please . Ordinance amending the administrative code to delegate authority from the board of supervisors to the Tax Collector under california revenue and taxation code, section 4765. 1, to administer excess proceeds claims after the completion of tax sales of Real Property okay welcome back. Hi, again. So moving on now to the property tax side of the house, and as you are aware, we are required to offer for auction parcels that are more than 5 years delinquent if their property taxes and i will be coming back to the committee in a future meeting with the parcels for this year. Once a parcel is sold through the auction and the city has satisfied all of our tax and assessment liens, and the fees and the cost of the sale, state law prescribes that any additional funds must be distributed to the propertys prior owners or lean holders and the state provides guidance on the process. And there is almost no local discorrection here. Access proceeds must be detained, for the period of one year, following the date of the recording of the tax deed to the purchaser of the property and during that one year period, the proceeds may be claimeded by any party of interest in the property at the time of the sale. If more than one party of interest claims these proceeds, the board of supervisors establishes the priority and the extent of their claims. For the 2015, auction, we had total excess proceeds in the amount of 216,000. And we have received claims for the amount of 32,300 dollars. Pursuant to the revenue and tax code of the state, the board may authorize the treasurer and Tax Collector to establish the information and proof deemed necessary to establish a claimants right to any or all portions of the proceeds. And managing the claims and refund process is very much within our core competency of a taxing authority. And so for east of the administration for the city and for tax payers, we are seeking your approval to delegate this authority to the office of the treasurer in the Tax Collector, thank you. Okay. And to the treasurer, and if there is some, disagreement by the plaintiff, is there any appeal process . If know other questions, if anybody would like to comment on item six . Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. Make a motion to send the ordinance forward with a positive recommendation. Motioned by supervisor tang and seconded by yee and we can take that without objection. All right, madam clerk, would you move on and call item nine. Ordinance appropriating 1,500,000 of Real Property transfer tax revenue to the Mayors Office of housing and Community Development, City Administrators Office of Civic Engagement and immigrant affairs, and Human Rights Commission to fund legal representation, pathways to citizenship, public outreach, and Rapid Response social services in fy20162017. Okay, thank you very much, we have the mayor as office to speak on this item. Good morning, thank you. And my name is deana and i am a very advisor to mayor lee and i have a Powerpoint Presentation and today i am accompanied by colleagues in the city and also in the community. Today i just like to start off by saying thank you first off to the board and the committee for your support in funding the agencies to offer additional Legal Support and to service immigrant families throughout the city and as many of you know and are aware after the Election Results Many Americans felt really anxious in terms of the devisively and polarizing president ial elections in our nations history and so given that climate, m