{"id":5,"date":"2013-10-15T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-10-15T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/jonherz40\/assembly-pulls-dirty-trick-holds-underwater-homeowners-hostage\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T19:16:50","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T19:16:50","slug":"assembly-pulls-dirty-trick-holds-underwater-homeowners-hostage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/jonherz40\/assembly-pulls-dirty-trick-holds-underwater-homeowners-hostage\/","title":{"rendered":"Assembly Pulls Dirty Trick: Holds Underwater Homeowners Hostage"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n<\/p>\n

ASSEMBLY PULLS DIRTY TRICK
\nHOLDS UNDERWATER HOMEOWNERS HOSTAGE
\nCALL ASSEMBLY MEMBER GATTO TODAY TO VOICE YOUR OUTRAGE! <\/strong><\/p>\n

C.A.R. is sponsoring SB 30 to provide relief to distressed homeowners attempting to sell their homes in a \u201cshort sale.\u201d Under current state law, when a lender forgives mortgage debt in a short sale, the seller must pay state income tax on the amount of forgiven debt. The federal government does not charge federal income tax, and neither should the state. These sellers are already in financial trouble, and SB 30 is necessary to give sellers relief from an inequitable and unfair situation.<\/p>\n

Last week the Assembly Appropriations Committee, at Assembly Member Gatto\u2019s direction, held SB 30. Senate leadership<\/a> took SB 30 hostage in an attempt to extort C.A.R.\u2019s support for a new tax measure. Rather than do the right thing and pass SB 30, Mr. Gatto decided to go along with Senate leadership. Right now, any seller who sold their home in a short sale this year will have to pay income tax on the debt forgiven by their lender.<\/p>\n

Action Items
\n1. Call Assembly Member Mike Gatto At (800) 969-3420<\/strong>
\n(Call between the hours of 9AM and 5PM Monday-Friday)<\/p>\n

Enter your PIN number 3057 # to be connected with his office.
\nIf you wish, you can bypass the first part of the message by entering the PIN, followed by the # sign, at any time. You may also bypass the 2nd part of the message by hitting the \u201c1\u201d key to be directly connected to your legislator\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

Ask him to support distressed homeowners and support SB 30. As the Chair of the Appropriations Committee, he is responsible for the committee\u2019s failure to act on behalf of distressed homeowner.<\/strong>
\n2. FORWARD THIS EMAIL TO YOUR CLIENTS, FAMILY AND FRIENDS \u2013
\nAsk them to Call Assembly Member Gatto too. They can use the same phone number and PIN number to be connected to Assembly Member Gatto\u2019s office.
\n3. Post messages on Mike Gatto\u2019s Facebook page:
\nwww.facebook.com\/mikegatto
\n4. Tweet messages via Twitter. Please be sure to include Assembly Member Mike Gatto\u2019s Twitter handle, @mikegatto, in your message.<\/p>\n

Here are some sample messages:<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t abandon distressed homeowners #YesSB30 #CaLeg @mikegatto http:\/\/on.car.org\/redalertsb30 RT<\/p>\n

No tax on short sales #YesSB30 #CaLeg @mikegatto http:\/\/on.car.org\/redalertsb30 RT<\/p>\n

I am a REALTOR & support distressed homeowners. Wish @mikegatto did too. #YesSB30 #CALeg http:\/\/on.car.org\/redalertsb30 RT<\/p>\n

Protect underwater homeowners. @mikegatto #YesSB30 #CALeg http:\/\/on.car.org\/redalertsb30 RT<\/p>\n

Pay large tax vs. foreclosure?? Help struggling homeowners. @mikegatto #YesSB30 #CALeg http:\/\/on.car.org\/redalertsb30 RT<\/p>\n

No tax on phantom income. @mikegatto #YesSB30 #CALeg http:\/\/on.car.org\/redalertsb30 RT<\/p>\n

Help families facing foreclosure. @mikegatto #YesSB30 #CALeg http:\/\/on.car.org\/redalertsb30 RT
\nBackground
\nThe federal government enacted the Mortgage Debt Relief Act of 2007 effectively excusing borrowers from income tax on debt forgiven in a \u201cshort\u201d sale. In late 2008, the federal government extended this relief until December 31, 2012. California conformed to the federal law for state tax purposes. On December 31, 2012, Congress passed budget solutions in an attempt to avoid the \u201cfiscal cliff.\u201d Included in this measure was an extension of the income debt forgiveness sunset date to December 31, 2013; however, California has NOT conformed to the new federal extension. C.A.R. is sponsoring SB 30, to extend this relief in California law to December 31, 2013, and make state law retroactive to January 1, 2013.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, Senate leadership, in an act of political gamesmanship, has linked the enactment of SB 30 to SB 391, an unrelated new recording tax. SB 391 does not have the support necessary to pass on its own merits, so they are holding distressed homeowners hostage to promote the tax increase. These are real families in real financial need who may well be forced into bankruptcy by an irresponsible legislature.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s why SB 30 is critical to California:
\n\u2022 Distressed homeowners are faced with a no-win situation \u2014 either pay taxes on money they don\u2019t get or let the home go to foreclosure. Distressed homeowners often only have two choices \u2013 closing a short sale or allowing their home to be foreclosed upon. If they fear state income tax liability on their short sale, they will opt for foreclosure instead in order to avoid state tax liability. Foreclosures are bad for communities, bad for homeowners and damage housing values more than short sales.
\n\u2022 Families deserve to know if they will be taxed. Homeowners currently in short sale negotiations can\u2019t finalize these transactions without potentially incurring state tax liability. Sellers who are involved in short sales or contemplating a short sale need to know now that the debt forgiven is not going to be treated as income for state tax purposes.
\n\u2022 It\u2019s the right thing to do. Families who have already been forced this year to make the difficult decision to sell their home as a short sale are already in financial trouble. They simply should not have tax liability on \u201cphantom\u201d income or debt forgiveness \u2013 money\u00a0they\u2019ve\u00a0never actually received.<\/p>\n

For More Information, please contact DeAnn Kerr at deannk@car.org<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ASSEMBLY PULLS DIRTY TRICK HOLDS UNDERWATER HOMEOWNERS HOSTAGE CALL ASSEMBLY MEMBER GATTO TODAY TO VOICE YOUR OUTRAGE! C.A.R. is sponsoring SB 30 to provide relief to distressed homeowners attempting to sell their homes in a \u201cshort sale.\u201d Under current state law, when a lender forgives mortgage debt in a short sale, the seller must pay […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1100,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/jonherz40\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/jonherz40\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/jonherz40\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/jonherz40\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1100"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/jonherz40\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/jonherz40\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/jonherz40\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5\/revisions\/32"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/jonherz40\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/jonherz40\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/jonherz40\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}