AB 2957: Water: University of California: California Institute for Water Innovation and Technology: corporate income taxes: credit: water technology.

Existing provisions of the California Constitution provide that the University of California constitutes a public trust, and require that the university be administered by the Regents of the University of California, a corporation in the form of a board, with full powers of organization and government, subject to legislative control only for specified purposes. These provisions require that corporation to have all the powers necessary or convenient for the effective administration of its trust.

This bill would request the regents to establish the California Institute for Water Innovation and Technology in order to achieve specified goals, including developing Californias next generation of water professionals and technicians and growing the states economy by creating new opportunities for jobs in water research, management, and technology. The bill would request the regents to locate the institute at a satellite campus within the City of Oroville. Oroville, or in the County of Butte downstream of Lake Oroville. The bill would provide that if the regents act on this request to establish the institute within that location, the regents will post a notice of that decision on its Internet Web site, and submit that notice to the Legislature for publication in the daily journals of both houses.

The Corporation Tax Law allows various credits against the taxes imposed by that law, including allowing a hiring credit for taxpayers within the specified areas.

This bill would, for each taxable year beginning on or after January 1, 2019, five consecutive taxable years beginning on or after the date that the regents establish the institute and post the notice in the journal to establish the institute, allow a credit against the taxes imposed by the Corporation Tax Law to qualified taxpayers, as defined, located in a water technology and innovation zone for qualified wages paid to qualified employees during the taxable year, as provided.

This bill would make legislative findings and declarations as to the necessity of a special statute for the City of Oroville.