On October 1, 2026 Governor Gavin Newsom signed SB 711 (McNerney, Stats. 2025, Ch. 231) advancing California’s “specified date” for conforming to the Internal Revenue Code (IRC) to January 1, 2025. The previous date was January 1, 2015.

California is among 18 static conformity states – meaning that state tax law conforms to the IRC as of a “specified date”. In the interim, the state must pass separate legislation in order to follow federal law changes.

However, the new conformity bill carves out a number of federal changes in the past 10 years, particularly from the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, to which the state does not conform regardless of the IRC date. In addition, because the One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) was enacted in July, 2025 (after the new specified date), SB 711 does not automatically conform California to changes made by that legislation.

Western CPE’s California Tax Update seminar will contain details of the new conformity bill as well as useful charts identifying conformity and nonconformity to past federal laws and OBBBA.