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Comment by blagie | Hacker News Reader

> “The bill would hold any officer, manager, partner, beneficial owner, or member of a shell company personally liable for any unpaid taxes, and any interest and penalties on those taxes, the nonpayment of which may constitute a crime, due on the purchase of a vehicle, vessel, or aircraft.”

Is dumb.

You want comprehensive enforcement with reasonable penalities.

You don't want draconian laws randomly enforced.

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I don't think it will hold up in federal courts. This seems to apply to cars that the company officer who lives and drives in Montana as well. If this only applies to cars used more than 50% in CA is would hold up. Of course truck drivers who mostly don't drive in CA but that is home may find an out with that plan.

Details are important and very hard to get right.

> If anyone running the business is a California resident (by the updated definition outlined above), then the whole business is a California resident, and any assets (including Lamborghinis and Bugattis) held in the state are subject to California taxation.

I'm relying on the paraphrasing in article rather than the text of the law itself, but this says that it only applies to assets held in the state.

The core of the law, ie who is expected to register their car in CA and what state sales taxes need to be paid has already been in place for years and likely already challenged. This is just a modifier to address a particular loophole.

As long as nothing about this crosses state lines (ie they’re not trying to regulate out of state businesses or property) there’s not a lot to go on. Several states have taken similar steps to close this loophole. Famously the YouTuber whistlindiesel got arrested in Tennessee for this and the case is still pending

https://www.thedrive.com/news/is-the-government-making-an-ex...

Details matter and the article may have them wrong, but my reading is this accidentally covers out of state cars as well. I'm not going to look up the law to see who is right though.

The cars are registered in MT but they’re under CA jurisdiction if they are primarily driven here. That’s the literal loophole. CA is not trying to force people to pay CA registration and sales tax on cars kept and used primarily out of state.

That is the intent of course. However it is really easy to write a law that missing important details and so despite the intent cover all cars regardless of where they are used.

This tries to apply a tax to people who have never set foot in California. I have no idea how this holds up.

It actually doesn't do that.

Did you even read what was written?

What, the government of CA is lobbing hastily-crafted, poorly considered legislation in the general direction of a problem that they think they have?

(surprised pikachu face)

You are speaking deeply to me about leaf blower bans in my town. They are useless.

If it is a blanket leaf blower ban, that is indeed asinine. However, I will gladly support a ban on two stroke engines for leaf blowers the same way I support requiring drivers to wear seatbelts.

> If it is a blanket leaf blower ban, that is indeed asinine.

Uh … okay, it isn't immediately obvious to me why that would be. My landlords insist on (literally) weekly leaf blowing, regardless of season, and so every Thursday the air outside the apartment is quite literally unbreathable, as it is slaked with dust and exhaust, and literally unbreathable inside if I were to open a window (i.e., living here, I have to remember to always close the windows prior to Thursday). Not to mention the sound.

Banning the gas ones fixes a portion of the problem, I suppose.

I don't think I'd care as much if the cadence was something reasonable, like monthly. One bad apple spoils the bunch.

The electric machines are way less intrusive. Ok with them.

Gas leaf blowers are a menace to society that should not be allowed in any urban or suburban area. (If you want to use one on your farm or whatever, go for it.)

Gas leaf blowers shouldn't be banned. What's needed is banning of the outputs:

- Pollution

- Noise

Regardless of the source. If someone comes up with a magic silent gas leaf blower which doesn't pollute, that's okay.

There are some unavoidable sources of noise, so I'm not sure a blanket noise restriction is going to work. If someone is doing home renovation and the contractor needs to run a saw for a while, it's just going to be loud. Sometimes someone needs to jackhammer up a slab of concrete, or chip up tree pruning debris. Etc.

But gas leaf blowers are easily replaced by a much less neighbor-hostile alternative.

Turns out noise control regulation has a solution for this:

"We have a permit."

It costs around $200 at City Hall to pick up a permit.

A month ago, I heard a lot of very loud jackhammer noises at 2AM. I got up and went out to investigate. A crew was jackhammering up the street. The foreman saw me and came by to apologize. The water main had broken and water was flooding the street. If they let it wait until morning, a lot of erosion damage would have been.

I told him I appreciate the crew coming out and fixing it right away.

Notice that I didn’t say “I love leaf blowers”

The ban is useless because the only way to enforce it is to catch it in the act (in my town). Basically impossible. So it is a ban that could be enforced (other ways) but instead is just a suggestion - and not one that most people follow because there are almost no repercussions.

> You want comprehensive enforcement with reasonable penalities.

> You don't want draconian laws randomly enforced.

This depends entirely on what the goal of the law is.

There is no such thing as “random” enforcement. Laws built this way end up getting abused against minorities (racial/ethnic or political), the poor, or personal and political enemies.

>>You want comprehensive enforcement with reasonable penalities. >>You don't want draconian laws randomly enforced.

Paying tax on a vehicle driven in a state is not unreasonable. And holding the executives of a shell/numbered/privately-held/tax-dodging organization liable for taxes owed is not draconian.

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