Public Reply to a Voter’s Question on the Board of Equalization

I RECEIVED THE QUESTION BELOW FROM A VOTER….MY PUBLIC RESPONSE FOLLOWS:

Hello,

I am a registered voter trying to make an informed decision in the upcoming election. Please help me to understand the duties of a member of the Board of Equalization and your vision for the office. I would also appreciate any additional information about your policy positions that you feel would be relevant to your campaign. Thank you very much for your time.

Sincerely, R.B.

Response:

Dear R.B. and to the voting public:

First, you can see some of the important concerns and issues I have on my blog at: http://janbtucker.com/blog/2014/05/21/tucker-for-board-of-equalization-news-release/

Although some candidates like to use the Board of Equalization election as a bully pulpit to talk about tax issues in general—which is not completely unreasonable—it helps to actually understand that most of what the BOE does is administer and enforce the collection of the sales tax. Because of that role the BOE’s board and staff are frequently consulted by legislators about the effects on the Board’s administrative role when they consider changes to sales tax laws. The enforcement arm of the BOE is investigative in nature, searching out major sectors of the so-called “underground economy” which evades sales taxes along with income and other taxes.

Paul Carpenter, a former BOE member who was eventually sent to prison, had taken an interest in the issue of the evasion of sales taxes by port trucking companies. This is what one of my supporters brought to my attention on the issue and he will be supplying me with details:

“The BOE is part of a task force that is supposed to meet with the CHP and discuss the trucking industry. 25 years ago we complained to the BOE of the thousands of chassis being used in drayage that are registered in Maine but never leave the California ports. NEVER! Each chassis cost new about $40,000 and sales tax is not being paid to the BOE. There are also IFTA issues which need to be addressed.”

As a private investigator since 1979 and former seven-term Chairman of the Board of the world’s largest organization of private detectives, I bring decades of investigative experience to bat to work effectively with BOE and CHP investigators to put a stop to scams like this.

It is no secret that Los Angeles is number one (1) on the top ten (10) list of American cities for the extent and monetary damage to society due to “Organized Retail Crime” (ORC) and San Francisco is number eight (8). In America as a whole, 96.5% of all retailers have experienced retail fraud and because of the positions of Los Angeles and San Francisco, a significant portion of that is concentrated in California. One of the most prevalent types of ORC is “refund fraud” in which stolen and/or fraudulently obtained merchandise is returned for cash or “store credit.” In each such case, the sales tax supposedly paid in the original transaction is “refunded” along with the purported purchase price even though neither was paid in the first place. In 2012 alone, $8.9 billion was stolen in refund scams like this with $2.9 billion lost during the holiday season alone. The percentage of sales taxes lost to California as a percentage of these national figures is thus enormous, because 84.2% of returns are estimated to be of stolen or fraudulently obtained products. A staggering 45.6% of stolen/fraudulently obtained merchandise is returned using counterfeit receipts!

Whether and if BOE investigators can or should play an active role in combating these frauds or whether they should be left to the typically overworked and over-committed local police departments is a serious question to be explored.

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Jan Tucker