#california
California business regulations and tax considerations
A practical guide to surviving California FTB and New York residency audits after moving to Florida, Texas, or Nevada — the domicile and statutory residency tests, day-count documentation, equity compensation traps, and the convenience-of-the-employer rule.
California SB 478, the FTC Junk Fees Rule, and new Minnesota, Massachusetts, and Connecticut statutes require all-in pricing across hotels, tickets, restaurants, and subscriptions in 2026. A practical compliance checklist covering pricing engines, third-party feeds, frontline scripts, and the accounting reclassification work that follows.
California's SB 53 (Transparency in Frontier AI Act) took operative effect on January 1, 2026, requiring foundation model developers training above 10^26 FLOPs to publish safety frameworks, report critical incidents to Cal OES within 15 days (24 hours for imminent threats), maintain anonymous whistleblower channels, and face civil penalties up to $1 million per violation enforced by the California Attorney General.
OSHA's proposed federal heat rule sets 80°F and 90°F triggers requiring water, shade, paid breaks, acclimatization, and a written HIIPP. Five state plans — California (Cal/OSHA 3395 and 3396), Washington, Oregon, Nevada, and Maryland — already enforce binding heat illness standards. Here's the compliance playbook construction, restaurant, warehouse, and delivery employers can build today under the General Duty Clause.
Six U.S. states now enforce Extended Producer Responsibility laws for packaging, with fee invoices arriving in 2025 and 2026. Here is how California SB 54, Oregon's Recycling Modernization Act, and Colorado's HB22-1355 reshape CPG brand P&L, plus the SKU-level bill of materials, ship-to-state allocation, and inventoriable vs. SG&A accounting treatment required for clean 2026 filings.
How California's Proposition 19 replaced Section 63.1 for parent-child transfers after February 16, 2021 — the family home and farm rules, the one-year occupancy requirement, the BOE-19-P and BOE-266 filings, the $1,044,586 value cap floor, and the step-up-basis trade-off that determines whether to gift during life or transfer at death.
A working guide to California AB5, the three-prong ABC test, the Borello and business-to-business exemptions, and EDD audit exposure that can reach $25,000 per willful misclassification — plus a practical compliance workflow for small businesses.
California SB 253 and SB 261 require companies with $500M+ revenue doing business in California to disclose Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions and publish TCFD-aligned climate risk reports. The first SB 253 emissions report is due August 10, 2026 — here is who is in scope, what to file, and how to prepare.
Navigate the complexities of starting a business in California with this comprehensive guide, detailing every essential step from crafting a business plan to legal establishment.
