1.5 Hours MCLE; 1.5 Legal Specialization in Taxation Law

This presentation provides a general overview of what are payroll taxes and the responsibilities that employers have with respect to both Federal and California State Payroll Taxes. The general outline of the presentation is the following: 

1. When do you have payroll taxes?
2. What are payroll taxes?
3. Filing Requirements
4. Penalties
5. Collections and the Trust Fund Recovery Penalty

The presentation will first go over the classification of employees vs. contractors. It is important for a business owner /employer to understand and distinguish clearly who is an employee and contractor. We will cover both federal and state worker classification laws and rulings. It is not always initially clear whether a worker should be classified as an employee or as a contractor. The goal of this section is to help viewers better understand how to classify workers and know whether payroll tax responsibilities apply.

The presentation next covers what are payroll taxes, both federal and state. I will describe each of the payroll taxes; including what they are for and determining how much needs to be withheld from employee paychecks. Apart from the withholding responsibility that employers may have, we will also cover the filing requirements that employers have with respect to payroll taxes.

The next section will cover what happens when employers run afoul of their withholding, deposit and or filing requirements. This section covers the associated penalties, including penalties for failure to file, failure to pay and late deposit. I will also go over how to challenge these penalties. 

The final section will cover how to deal with both federal and state collections to address delinquent past due payroll tax liabilities. This section will cover repayment options and the importance of the trust fund recovery penalty. I will cover what is the trust fund recovery penalty, how it assessed and how they determine who is responsible for it.

Moderator: Katilyn Farrell. Speaker: Carlos Meza.

Carlos Meza is an associate tax attorney at the Richard Carpenter Tax Law Office, a San Diego based boutique law firm specializing in tax controversy. With over 5 years of experience working with Richard Carpenter, Carlos helps both domestic and international individuals and businesses solve federal and state tax problems by custom tailoring the right solutions. His work experience includes U.S. Tax Court litigation, tax audits, tax and filing compliance issues, worker classification, collections and foreign bank disclosures and foreign business filing requirements.

Carlos is a graduate of the University of California Berkeley, where he received his Bachelors Degree in Political Economy and a minor in Ethnic Studies. After undergrad, Carlos pursued his legal career and attended the University of San Diego School of Law, where he received his J.D. and LLM in Taxation degrees. With a love for helping and serving his community, Carlos devotes his time to helping people in need. At his law school graduation, Carlos was recognized for his extensive hours spent working pro bono at the Family Law Facilitators. Carlos has also been extensively involved at the USD Federal Income Tax Clinic, where he helped numerous low income taxpayers solve their tax problems.