North Star Law Firm ✦ Insights
California Tax, Business, Trust, and Bankruptcy Insights
Plain-English analysis of new laws, court decisions, and agency guidance for California business owners, families, and the professionals who advise them, from an attorney who is also a CPA.
-
Money in a Late Spouse’s Name: California Constructive Trusts and Probate Code 850
Why California needs no promise for a constructive trust, how a Probate Code 850 petition recovers a spouse’s money, when 859 doubles it, and which clock applies.
-
Company Paid the Owner’s Taxes Before Chapter 7? California Clawbacks After Miller
Miller took the IRS off the table for older payments. The insider who benefited, a four-year California reach-back, and an open question for the FTB remain.
-
Filing a Tax Court Petition in California: Trial City, S Case and Ninth Circuit Law
Sacramento is now a Tax Court trial city, but the bigger petition choices are the small-case box and your appeal rights, plus what the FTB does with the result.
-
California Business Sale Earnouts: Effort Clauses, Damages and the Tax Bill
Why earnout sellers end up disappointed, what to demand in the effort clause and milestones, and the installment, interest and wage questions the CPA must settle.
-
California Nonprofit Insider Loans: Section 5236, Self-Dealing and the IRS 200% Tax
One interest-free note cost a charity president $1.3 million in Tax Court. How California’s loan ban, self-dealing rules and the IRS correction window reach insiders.
-
IRS Form 872 in California: Fine v. Commissioner and the FTB’s Extra Six Months
A new Tax Court ruling says a signed Form 872 lasts until its date. When to sign, when to restrict or refuse, and what the extension does to the FTB clock.
-
Vacating an Old Default Judgment in California After Hoehn and Coney Island
A bank levy or title report reveals a years-old judgment. How service defects, sections 473.5 and 473(d), and the 2026 Rule 60 ruling set your deadline to act.
-
Lending Your Child a California Down Payment: AFR Notes, Galli and the Family Trust
How to paper a parent-to-child house loan so the IRS respects it, why a note can be worth more than face at death, and how a trustee handles it among siblings.
-
Can a California Business File Subchapter V to End a Fight With One Creditor?
A $450,000 judgment, an appeal bond you cannot post, and one angry creditor. When a Subchapter V filing survives a bad-faith motion in a California bankruptcy court.