Hacker News Reader

Comment by legitsource | Hacker News Reader

I would not have thought that retroactive tax bills were legal. Are there any other common examples or is this a new precedent?

View on HN

The more troubling part is that he's claiming that they are charging interest and penalties on the 'unpaid taxes.' To retroactively change your bill, then charge you interest and penalties for 'late payment' seems well over-the-top.

If I didn't know better, I'd say that they was a blatant money grab. </sarcasm>

Virtually every year TurboTax tells me I can't submit my return because they're still writing the rules for the year that just finished.

The SC ruled that the retroactive immunity given to telecom companies was legal.

I'm pretty sure "Ex Post Facto" is dead.

Ex post facto is not synonymous with "retroactive."

See the post by David Redden in this thread: http://www.connorboyack.com/blog/ex-post-facto-law.

"Secondly, while there’s some evidence that some of the “framers” thought “ex post facto” included civil laws, it’s well-established that the most influential federalists in the late 18th Century understood an “ex post facto law” to mean a law that was 1) criminal, 2) functioned retroactively, and 3) worked to the detriment of the accused. (See Crosskey, The True Meaning of the Constitutional Prohibition of Ex-Post Facto Laws, 14 U.Chi.L.Rev. 539 (1947))."

The Supreme Court ruled in Calder v. Bull (1798) that the prohibition on ex-post-facto laws applies only to criminal laws, not civil matters. One could argue that shouldn't be the case, but it's not a later shift away from the 18th-century interpretation.

Retroactive immunity is rather the opposite of retroactive criminalization.

>No State shall... pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex_post_facto_law#United_States

This situation was instigated by a successful lawsuit against the FTB. I wonder if another one is on the way. According to this, however, courts have ruled that retroactive tax laws are not considered ex post facto.

The funny thing is that this isn't even the only one that CA is imposing, the entirety of Prop 30 (voted on in Nov 2012) is retroactive for the entire tax year.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com