Did you know that the California Missions Foundation is currently one of only sixteen charities eligible to receive money from the California State Income Tax Voluntary Contributions list? In 2004, charitable California taxpayers donated approximately $150,000 to the Foundation by "checking off" a portion of their return (or in addition to their taxes) on the standard 540/540EZ tax forms. In order to stay on the check-off list for the full five years, however, we need to receive $360,000 in contributions from the 2003 and 2004 tax years.

To promote awareness of this exciting way to give, we have created a bookmark available to print out from our website. Preserving and maintaining the California Missions for the benefit of our public visitors and schoolchildren is very important, and also very expensive. When doing your 2004 state income taxes, please consider "checking-off" a small amount for the sake of these wonderful historic treasures. The exact spot on the 540 form for state personal income tax is step 10, line 62. Go to the Franchise Tax Board website, or call the California Missions Foundation at (951) 369-0440 to find out more.

Senate Bill 92 – CALIFORNIA MISSIONS FOUNDATION FUND
Introduced January 28, 2003 (Senators Speier, Ducheny, McPherson, and Soto; Co-authors: Assembly Members Cancialilla, Dutra, Lieber, Mullin, Nunez, Maldonado and Yee).

The bill was passed by the Senate Revenue and Taxation Committee on March 26 and referred to the Senate Appropriations Committee. The Appropriations Committee passed the legislation on April 28th. The bill was passed by the Senate on May 8th and sent to the Assembly. The Assembly Committee on Revenue and Taxation passed the bill on July 7. The Assembly Appropriations Committee passed the bill on August 20. Passed by the Assembly on September 2. Recorded in the Senate and sent to the Governor. Governor Davis signed the legislation into law on September 22, 2003.

Provisions relating to the administration of personal income taxes allow individual taxpayers to contribute amounts in excess of their tax liability for the support of specified funds.

The legislation allows taxpayers to designate on their tax returns that a specified amount in excess of their tax liability be transferred to the California Missions Foundation Fund, which was be created by this bill.

The bill requires that all moneys contributed to the fund pursuant to these provisions, upon appropriation by the Legislature, be allocated to the Franchise Tax Board and to the California Missions Foundation, a charitable organization, as provided. The bill provides that these voluntary contribution provisions are repealed on January 1 of the 5th taxable year following the taxable year the fund first appears on the tax return. The bill further provides that these provisions are repealed for taxable years beginning on or after January 1 of the calendar year in which the Franchise Tax Board estimates by September 1 that the contributions made on returns filed in that calendar year are less than $250,000, or an adjusted amount for subsequent taxable years.