For Immediate Release

Contact: Erin King, Executive Director

Phone: (949)783-4130

E-mail: erinking.cssa@gmail.com

California SSA Announces Update on AB 2540

Proposed Sales Tax No Longer A Threat To Self-Storage Operators

NEWPORT BEACH, CALIFORNIA —June 7, 2012 — The California Self Storage Association (CSSA) has announced that Assembly Bill 2540 is no longer a threat for self-storage operators. The CSSA and the national Self-Storage Association (SSA) had joined forces to fight the bill, which proposed a 7.5 percent excise tax that would be applied to storage use or consumption in the state effective January 1, 2013.

"We are grateful to the SSA for partnering with us to fight this proposed legislation and are happy to report that the bill is no longer a threat to our industry,” says Erin King, CSSA Executive Director. "The general issue of the proposed sales tax is not going away, but at least for this year, it is dead.”

The proposed bill, the result of a bi-partisan group in the California legislature that has been working on an expansion of sales tax in the state to include services, would have required a two-thirds vote in both houses. "The bill just didn’t go anywhere,” explains King, who says that the CSSA will continue to monitor any proposed taxes that may be introduced.

A similar case was introduced in South Dakota in January—Senate Bill 142—which would have impose a 4 percent sales tax on the gross receipts derived from self-storage unit rentals, and a 4 percent privilege-use tax on the rental payments for use of the property. The bill was killed in the South Dakota Senate earlier this year.

For more information about the CSSA and its efforts, please visit www.californiaselfstorage.org.

About The California Self-Storage Association
Founded in 2002, the California Self Storage Association (CSSA) is the state not-for-profit trade organization dedicated to serving the California Self-Storage industry including owner-operators, facility managers and industry vendors. The CSSA represents some 450 direct member companies that own and operate over 1,200 facilities in California. CSSA direct members range from individual facility owner-operators to multiple-facility operations, to the industry's largest publicly traded Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs).