California Supreme Court: Employer Must Prove Qualified Employees to Receive Tax Credit

In a long-awaited decision affecting many large California employers and hundreds of millions of dollars of tax credits, the California Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeal decision in Dicon Fiberoptics v. Franchise Tax Board, holding that the Franchise Tax Board (FTB) may require a taxpayer to establish that certain employees in specified enterprise zones are “qualified employees”, above and beyond the state’s certification process, in order to receive hiring incentive tax credits.

The Court of Appeal had held that the state-issued vouchers received by Dicon (and every other employer who participated in the enterprise zone tax credit program) were “prima facie” proof of a qualified employee and that the FTB had to establish that the employee was not eligible under the program before denying the employer the benefit of the associated tax credit. As a practical matter, the Court of Appeals case treated the state-issued certifications as conclusory evidence of the employee’s qualification. The Supreme Court reversed this crucial element of the Court of Appeal decision, thereby allowing the FTB to deny the credit where the only evidence of the employee’s qualification was the voucher and shifting the burden to the taxpayer to establish that the employee was otherwise qualified for the incentive tax credit.

Read the entire opinion here:
Dicon Fiberoptics v. Franchise Tax Board, No. S173860 (Ca. Sup. April 26, 2012)

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