How Do I File a CA Form 496?

The CA Form 496 compliance report is used to report Independent Expenditures that are $1,000 or more in aggregate to support (or oppose) a single candidate (or committee) 90 days before an election.

If you are expecting a transaction to pull to this report, make sure there is a Support/Oppose Memo on the transaction. More specifically, a S/O Memo with the IE to Support or IE to Oppose tag. If there are multiple reports, they will generate in alphabetical order based on the S/O Memo.

If a transaction pulls to this report that you are not expecting, then this could be due to the designated election. For example, if the Current Election is Non-Election, then the report uses the date it is generated (in lieu of an election date) and goes back 90 days from this report generation date.

Included on the Form 496 are contributions received that are $100 or more per transaction since the last filed statement (Form 460, for example).

How do I set up the Form 496 Report in ISPolitical?

When generating a Form 496 in ISPolitical, navigate to the Reports tab, then Compliance. On the resulting criteria page, set up the following required fields:

Filer:  Make sure the correct person/entity is selected (if you have more than one).
Compliance Report: Select the CA Form 496 from the listed report types.
Compliance Report Version: Select either the Standard version, or the Ten Business Day version. The Ten Business Day version is filed by state and local committees making Independent
Expenditures associated with a Ballot Measure whose combined total
is $5,000 or more any time outside of the 90 days before an election.
Current Election: The report will use the Current Election field to determine the 90-day report period for the Independent Expenditures.
From/To Dates: This sets the starting date and ending date for the Contributions. Make sure to enter the From Date as the day after the closing date of the last filed report.

For Example: Your last filed report is the April Quarterly. That report’s close date was 3/31. The date you would enter in the From Date field would be 4/1.

Entity: This is an optional field. If you know the name of the Support/Oppose entity, you can begin typing the name to search and choose, and generate the report for the specific entity. Leaving this field blank will randomly select the Support/Oppose Memo that applies.

How do I generate Form 496 reports for multiple candidates/committees?

The Form 496 is unique in that a new report is needed for each candidate or committee with an Independent Expenditures over $1,000 in aggregate in the period or contributions over $100 since the last filed report.

It’s quite common for a committee to have an expense for one business that supports 4 different candidates.

In this type of situation, follow these steps to generate multiple Form 496 reports:

1. Run the report. ISPolitical will automatically select your first candidate/committee and generate a Form 496 report.
2. Review the data.
3. Make sure you file the report and then click Mark As Filed once you receive confirmation.
4. Click Regenerate. The candidate/committee automatically selected in step 1 will be skipped and the next one automatically selected.
5. Repeat until all candidates/committees have a corresponding Form 496 report.