Practice Areas

Posted by Chris L. Raddatz

Opportunity Zones and Opportunity Funds—A Win-Win for Investors and Low-Income Community Businesses

An often-overlooked program enacted as part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act creates Opportunity Zones to incentivize economic development and job creation in low-income communities. The new program, outlined in new Internal Revenue Code sections 1400Z-1 and -2, allows unlimited amounts of otherwise taxable capital gains to be deferred and subsequent earnings on capital gains invested in Opportunity Funds to be forgiven altogether. To defer the gain, a taxpayer must invest the proceeds from the sale into an Opportunity Fund within 180 days in an amount equal to the gain being deferred.

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Moon Valley Golf Course to Stop Irrigating with Drinking Water
[From AZCentral.com]

Most golf courses across the country have started to use non-potable, untreated water to maintain their green lawns. But there are a handful of courses in Phoenix still watering with drinking water.

The privately owned Moon Valley Country Club and Pointe Tapatio Lookout Mountain Golf Club have both been using drinking water since they were developed almost 60 years ago. But that will soon change.
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Potable water treatment isn’t cheap. Tom McDonald, an attorney from Gammage & Burnham who has worked with Moon Valley to get off of potable water, said the Moon Valley community went through a bankruptcy a few years ago due largely in part to the high cost of water.

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Author: Richard K. Mahrle

Issue: January 23, 2018

2018 EMPLOYMENT LAW UPDATES

With a new year come new changes. You may want to pull out your employee handbook or policy manual and consider revising it to meet the new requirements. We can help you with that. Please contact Rick Mahrle for assistance or with any questions on the employment law updates below.

Minimum Wage
Don’t forget that the minimum wage in Arizona is now $10.50 effective January 1, 2018 and will move to $11.00 an hour effective January 1, 2019.

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Author: Susan L. Watchman

Issue: January 25, 2018

SAMHSA Issues Final Confidentiality Rule

On January 3, 2018, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration the issued final rule on “Confidentiality of Substance Use Disorder Patient Records” in January 2017. At the time the final rule was issued, SAMHSA concurrently issued a supplemental notice of proposed
rulemaking with comment period; these changes are the result of that supplemental notice.

Changes include the following:

1. Under § 2.32, “Prohibition on Re-Disclosure,” paragraph (a)(2) permits an abbreviated notice to address the character limitations in standard free-text fields of electronic systems.

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We are proud to be a sponsor of the 2017 Arizona Healthcare Financial Management Association fall conference.  This year’s conference will be held at the Loew’s Ventana Canyon Resort in Tucson October 11th – 13th.

For more information, please go here.

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