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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
The incident was first reported at about 11:40 p.m. on Highway 53 between Jessie Street and Dam Road, according to radio reports.
The first units on the scene reported a man down in the highway’s northbound section.
Initial reports said it appeared to be a pedestrian who had been hit by a vehicle.
Just after 11:50 p.m., it was confirmed over the air that the injured man had died.
At 11:55 p.m., at the request of one of the officers on the scene, the Clearlake Police Department issued a Nixle asking people to avoid that area of the highway due to a traffic collision, with the northbound lane temporarily blocked.
Firefighters released the scene to the California Highway Patrol just after 12:20 a.m. Saturday.
A short time later, there was a request for two personnel to assist with traffic control for less than an hour.
Additional information will be published when it becomes available.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
CLEARLAKE, Calif. — Clearlake Animal Control has a full house of great dogs waiting for their new homes.
There are 28 dogs available this week for adoption.
They include “Aoki,” a 2-year-old male Siberian husky mix with bright blue eyes, and “Data,” a 1-year-old male Labrador retriever mix.
The shelter is located at 6820 Old Highway 53. It’s open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.
For more information, call the shelter at 707-762-6227, email
This week’s adoptable dogs are featured below.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
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- Written by: Thomas Godwin, Purdue University
Mid-April has arrived. And along with the spring sunshine, that means the often dreaded civic duty of finishing off one’s taxes.
It’s an arduous time for many, characterized by navigating increasingly confusing rules to arrive at the best refund possible. For some, it means writing a check to the federal government. Not fun.
On a brighter note, the tax deadline has been pushed back to April 18 this year, giving those leaving it to the last minute a few extra days. Usually, the day falls on April 15.
But why is Tax Day in April anyway? Well, it hasn’t always been.
The federal individual income tax was permanently enacted by the 16th Amendment in 1913. Before that, the only federal individual income tax that existed was in place for about a decade beginning in 1861 to ease the financial burden of the Civil War on the government.
Extending the deadline
The tradition of filing tax returns in early spring has historically been a practical one. Since individual tax returns encompass a calendar year, Congress sought to allow time for individuals to fully account for all of their income, deductions and credits.
The original due date for individual income tax returns was March 1, just over a year following the adoption of the 16th Amendment on Feb. 3, 1913.
Back then, not many taxpayers needed to file a tax return, since the filing requirement applied only to single filers with income over US$3,000 and married filers with income over $4,000 – about $90,000 and $120,000 in today’s dollars, respectively.
In 1914, this threshold represented approximately the top 4% of earners, so filing a tax return was a burden reserved for the wealthy.
Quickly realizing that many taxpayers needed more time to complete their returns, Congress pushed the tax deadline back to March 15, effective in 1919.
And on that date Tax Day stood for over 30 years.
But with more taxpayers needing to file returns as the filing threshold declined and the tax laws grew in complexity, Americans needed even more time to correctly complete their returns.
So in 1954, Congress overhauled the tax system and adopted a major revision to the Internal Revenue Code.
This change also came with another extension of the tax deadline for individuals, pushing the due date back again to the familiar April 15.
The intent of giving taxpayers an extra month to prepare their returns was to allow more people the ability to file on time – and often get refunds more quickly. Not only did this change assist taxpayers, but it also allowed the Internal Revenue Service more time to spread out its workload.
The April 15 deadline proved to be a more reasonable deadline, and it has stuck with U.S. taxpayers for almost 70 years.
Since 1955, the IRS has established earlier due dates for many information returns that provide numbers feeding into Form 1040, such as Forms 1099 and W-2, both of which are due Jan. 31, to ensure that most taxpayers are able to file by Tax Day.
In 2016, the IRS pushed the due date of other returns forward a month to March 15, again in an effort to allow more individuals to timely file.
So why later this year?
The mid-April date seems to work for the majority of taxpayers – in most years, anyhow. According to the IRS, about 90% of taxpayers were able to file their returns by the deadline in 2021, with the other 10% requesting a six-month extension to file.
But for the tax year 2022, about 19 million taxpayers extended their returns, a significant increase from prior years due to the increased complexity of the tax code brought on by temporary provisions relating to the COVID-19 pandemic.
So why is Tax Day this year April 18 instead of April 15?
Any time a deadline falls on a Saturday or Sunday, the IRS pushes the due date to the following Monday, which would be April 17, 2023. However, any federal holiday also pushes the date back by a day. Since Emancipation Day, which usually falls on April 16, is observed in Washington, D.C., on April 17 this year, Tax Day was pushed back an additional day to Tuesday, April 18, 2023.
While having a tax deadline of April 18 happens only about every six years, the IRS occasionally pushes back the filing deadline for emergency situations like natural disasters, although these are often local. For example, the IRS extended the original due date of individual tax returns in disaster areas in Alabama, California and Georgia until Oct. 16, 2023. Similarly, the IRS pushed the national deadline back to July 15, 2020, in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.
So use your extra days of tax preparation time wisely in 2023 and be sure to file your individual income tax return, or request an extension to file by April 18.
Although this time of year can often be stressful and confusing because of complicated tax laws, it will be over soon enough.
Thomas Godwin, Assistant Professor of Accounting, Purdue University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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- Written by: DENNIS FORDHAM
Special considerations arise when making gifts to charities. Let us discuss.
First, what is the proper legal name and address of the charity?
For example, naming the “Mendocino Humane Society” as a beneficiary would cause problems. There are at least three different “not for profit” organizations in Mendocino which each use the words “Mendocino” and “Humane Society” as part of their name.
If the bequest is large enough, this can result in litigation amongst the charities over who receives the bequest.
Fortunately, this problem is easily avoided by contacting the charity to obtain their legal name and legal street address.
Second, is the bequest intended to be used in a specific geographic location (e.g., Northern California)?
For example, a gift to Shriner’s Children (formerly known as, “Shriners Hospital for Children”) is a gift to an international organization and is not limited to use in any one specific area. A gift intended for use in the Northern California hospital would need to be made to, “Shriner’s Children Northern California.”
Ask the intended charity for the exact wording needed to designate a specific member of a national organization as the sole beneficiary.
Moreover, it may be prudent also to say that the funds may not be shared with the nationwide organization.
In BREATHE SO. CAL. V. AM. LUNG ASS’N (Case cite: A160785), California First District Court of Appeal, examined the plain language of three separate bequests and decided that the donors had intended to restrict the gift to use by a particular affiliate of the American Lung Association.
The appellate court honored the donors’ intentions even though specific language excluding sharing with the national organization was not used.
Third, is the bequest intended to be used for a specific purpose?
An outright gift to a charity is typically absorbed into the charity’s general fund where it may be used, amongst other things, to pay for the charity’s administrative expenses, i.e., overhead.
If the gift is intended, for example, to be used only for research into cures for cancer then a specifically worded endowment fund is needed. The wording will include both the name of the endowment and the limitation, “for research into cancer cures.”
Fourth, when an ongoing endowment is involved, i.e., it lasts beyond one year, consideration should be given to how much of the endowment’s income and principal may be spent each year.
If the endowment’s wording is silent on how much income and principal may be used each year, then expenditures are governed by California’s Uniform Prudent Management of Institutional Funds Act (UPMI) (codified as Section 18501 to 18510 of the Probate Code).
Under section 18504(a), “… an institution may appropriate for expenditure or accumulate so much of an endowment fund as the institution determines is prudent for the uses, benefits, purposes, and duration for which the endowment fund is established.”
Fifth, when a charitable gift is intended to qualify for an estate tax or an income tax deduction, consideration needs to be given to eligibility to receive the tax deduction based on both the purpose of the gift and the tax status of the organization.
That is, the tax deduction depends on both the use of the gift and the tax-exempt status of the beneficiary.
The gift should say it is qualified on the condition that the beneficiary is still a qualified tax exempt organization eligible to receive a tax-deductible gift, either for estate tax or income tax (as is relevant), at the time the gift is made.
The foregoing is a brief discussion of some issues that may need to be considered when making a significant charitable gift. For legal guidance consult a qualified attorney.
Dennis A. Fordham, attorney, is a State Bar-Certified Specialist in estate planning, probate and trust law. His office is at 870 S. Main St., Lakeport, Calif. He can be reached at