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(Amended by Ord. No. 180,380, Eff. 1/5/09.)
(a) It shall be unlawful for the Director of Finance or any person having an administrative duty under the provisions of this Article or Article 1.6 to make known in any manner whatever the business affairs and operations of, or the nature, amount or source of income, profits, losses, expenditures, net worth, or any particular thereof, or any other information set forth in any statement or return or obtained by an investigation of records and equipment of, any person required to obtain a business tax registration certificate or sales or use tax permit, or pay business, sales or use tax or any other person visited or examined in the discharge of official duty, or to permit any statement or return, or copy of either, or any book containing any abstract or particulars thereof to be seen or examined by any person.
(b) Nothing in this section shall be construed to prevent:
1. the disclosure of information to, or the examination of records and equipment by, another City official or employee or a member of the Board of Review for the sole purpose of administering or enforcing any provision of this article or Article 1.6;
2. the disclosure of information to, or the examination of records by federal or state officials, or the tax officials of another city or county, or city and county, if a reciprocal arrangement exists; or to a grand jury;
3. the disclosure of information and results of examination of records of a particular taxpayer, or relating to a particular taxpayer, with respect to any proceeding in a court of law or before an administrative body in which the existence or amount of any business, sales or use tax liability of the particular taxpayer to the City of Los Angeles is relevant and material and the particular taxpayer is a party to the proceeding, including but not limited to proceedings before any Board or Commission as set forth in Municipal Code section 22.02;
4. the disclosure after the filing of a written request to that effect, to the taxpayer, or to the taxpayer’s successors, receivers, trustees, executors, administrators, assignees and guarantors, if directly interested, of information as to the items included in the measure of any paid tax, any unpaid tax or amounts of tax required to be collected, interest and penalties; further provided, however, that the City Attorney approves each such disclosure and that the Director of Finance may refuse to make any disclosure referred to in this paragraph when in the Director’s opinion the public interest would suffer thereby;
5. the disclosure of the names and addresses of persons to whom registration certificates or sales tax and use tax permits have been issued;
6. the disclosure of such information as may be necessary to the City Council in order to permit it to be fully advised as to the facts when a taxpayer files a claim for refund of business, sales or use taxes, or submits an offer of compromise with regard to a claim for refund of business, sales or use taxes, or submits an offer of compromise with regard to a claim asserted against the taxpayer by the City for business, sales or use taxes, or where the existence or amount of business, sales, or use taxes are otherwise relevant to the determination of a matter required to be submitted to the City Council under the City of Los Angeles Charter, the Los Angeles Municipal Code, or the Los Angeles Administrative Code;
7. the disclosure of information to, or the examination of records by, contractors or employees of contractors with whom the City of Los Angeles has contracted to assist the City of Los Angeles for the sole purpose of administering or enforcing any provision of this Article or Article 1.6, if the contract requires the persons granted access to such information or records to abide by the confidentiality requirements of this Section, and if the City Council has approved the award and execution of such contract;
8. the disclosure of information to, or the examination of records by, purchasers of accounts receivable pursuant to Los Angeles Administrative Code section 5.186, or the disclosure to any employees of such purchasers of accounts receivable, if the purchase agreement requires the persons granted access to such information or records to abide by the confidentiality requirements of this Section;
9. the disclosure of the identity of any particular taxpayer with delinquent business, sales, or use taxes and the type and amount of the delinquent business, sales, or use tax liability of that taxpayer, and the publication of such information at the discretion of the Office of Finance pursuant to Los Angeles Municipal Code section 21.15(m);
10. the disclosure of information when compelled by an order of court or other judicial process; and
11. the disclosure of statistical or cumulative information when the disclosure does not identify any particular taxpayer or reveal information in a manner that could identify a particular taxpayer.
(a) No registration certificate shall be issued, nor shall a suspended certificate be reinstated, to any person who, at the time of applying therefor, is indebted to the City of Los Angeles for any delinquent business, sales or use taxes, unless such person, with the consent of the Director of Finance, enters into an agreement with the City of Los Angeles, through the Director of Finance, to pay such delinquent taxes in monthly installments, or oftener, extending over a period of not to exceed one year. (Amended by Ord. No. 160,389, Eff. 10/21/85.)
(b) Persons indebted to the City of Los Angeles for delinquent business, sales or use taxes may, with the consent of the Director of Finance enter into an agreement with the City of Los Angeles, through the Director of Finance, to pay such delinquent taxes in monthly installments, or oftener, extending over a period of not to exceed one year.
(c) In any agreement so entered into, the person shall acknowledge the obligation owed to the City and agree that in the event of failure to make timely payment of any installment, the whole amount unpaid, together with accrued interest, shall become immediately due and payable; and that in the event legal action is brought by the City to enforce collection of any amount included in the agreement, the person will pay all costs of suit incurred by the City of Los Angeles, including a reasonable attorney’s fee. The execution of such a contract shall not prevent the accrual of interest on unpaid balances at the rate provided in Sec. 21.05. No penalties shall accrue on account of delinquency for taxes owed during the period covered by the contract after the execution of the contract and the payment of the first installment.
(d) Notwithstanding the provisions of Section 21.05, in any agreement entered between the effective date of this ordinance and September 30, 2021, no interest or penalty shall accrue, provided the person makes timely payments of all installments. Should the person fail to make a timely payment, interest and penalty shall accrue and be due under Section 21.05 as if no installment agreement had been entered. This subsection shall apply only to installment agreements entered under the authority of this section and shall not apply to any other installment agreement or payment agreement. (Added by Ord. No. 187,119, Eff. 8/7/21.)
(Amended by Ord. No. 180,358, Eff. 12/20/08.)
(a) Any tax required to be paid under the provisions of this article, shall be deemed a debt owed to the City. Any person engaging in a business required to obtain a registration certificate and pay a business tax who fails to obtain such certificate shall be liable from the date they became subject to the tax, but in no event shall such person be liable for a period greater than eight (8) years. Any person owing any tax under the provision of this article shall be liable in an action brought in the name of the City of Los Angeles in any court of competent jurisdiction for recovery of any such amount.
(b) An action to collect the business tax and any related penalty and interest must be commenced within three years of the date the business tax becomes delinquent. The statute of limitations on an action by the City to collect unpaid taxes is tolled while the City is unaware of the existence or ongoing activities of a business due to the taxpayer’s failure to obtain a registration certificate and pay a business tax. The statute of limitations is also tolled while an administrative appeal is pending.
The conviction of any person for engaging in business without obtaining a registration certificate, or for failure to pay any tax due under or otherwise comply with the provisions of this article or Article 1.5, shall not relieve the person from the obligation to pay any taxes that the person may owe the City, nor shall the payment of any taxes owed prevent a prosecution under appropriate provisions of the Municipal Code for any violation of the provisions of this article or Article 1.5. The remedies provided in this Code are cumulative. The use of one or more of the remedies prescribed in this article shall not bar the use of any other remedy provided for the enforcement of the provisions of this article or Article 1.5.
(Amended by Ord. No. 141,263, Eff. 12/21/70.)
If the Director of Finance finds that any amount of tax due or believed to be due under the provisions of this article or Article 1.5 cannot be collected, or that efforts to collect any such amount would be disproportionately costly with relation to the probable outcome of the collecting efforts, the Director of Finance may prepare a report setting forth the Director’s finding and the reasons therefor, and submit it to a Board of Review constituted as provided in Sec. 21.16 of this Code. Upon unanimous approval of a finding by the Board of Review, the Director of Finance may remove from the Director’s active accounts receivable any unpaid tax owing or believed to be owing. If the Board of Review does not unanimously approve the finding, the matter shall be returned to the Director of Finance. The removal from the active accounts receivable of the Director of Finance of any unpaid tax as provided herein shall not preclude the City from collecting or attempting to collect any such tax that later proves to be collectible.
(Amended by Ord. No. 149,522, Eff. 5/23/77.)
(a) The provisions of this article shall not be construed to require the payment of any business tax to operate or carry on the functions of any charitable or religious institution, organization or association organized for charitable or religious purposes and conducted solely for such purposes, nor the payment of any business tax to engage in teaching, preaching or otherwise disseminating any religious tenets or the beliefs of any religion; nor shall any business tax be required to be paid by any religious or other charitable association, including fraternal, educational, civic, military, state, county and municipal organizations and associations, for the conducting or staging of any theatrical, art, or sporting exhibition or similar event, or any dance, concert, or lecture, when the net proceeds derived from any of the same are not used for the purpose of private gain to any individual but are used wholly for the benefit of such organization or for charitable or benevolent purposes, nor shall a business tax be required to be paid by any credit union corporation. Such persons are entitled to receive tax exempt registration certificates upon application for and qualification as provided in this section.
(b) An independent contractor who for profit or gain undertakes to carry on any business or activity, for the conduct or operation of which a registration certificate and business tax is required by any section of this article, shall not be exempted from the registration and tax requirements of this Article because of the fact that the independent contractor has paid or agreed to pay or turn over to any charitable institution or organization a portion of the receipts of the business or activity as a reward or recompense for the sponsorship of the business or activity, or for any other reason, and such a contractor shall not be deemed to be acting for purposes entitling the contractor to a tax exempt registration certificate.
(c) 1. The Director of Finance shall, upon application, issue a tax exempt registration certificate to any credit union corporation upon being furnished with satisfactory evidence of its incorporation and operation as such.
2. Any applicant for a tax exempt registration certificate authorized in Subsection (a), other than a credit union corporation, shall make an application upon a form furnished by the Director of Finance. The application shall be forwarded to the Board of Police Commissioners which shall make or cause to be made such investigation of the applicant and the activity carried on or proposed to be carried on as may be necessary to determine whether or not the applicant and the activity for which a tax exempt registration certificate is applied for meet the requirements of Subsection (a) hereof, and that the proceeds of the activity, if any, are to be used for the purposes mentioned therein. The Board of Police Commissioners shall endorse its finding upon the application and return the same to the Director of Finance. If the finding is to the effect that the requirements of Subsection (a) are met, the Director of Finance shall then issue a tax exempt registration certificate provided the applicant has complied with all other applicable provisions of this Code; provided further, however, that when the activity to be engaged in is of the kind for which the applicant must file a Notice of Intention as provided in Article 4 of Chapter 4 of this Code, no tax exempt registration certificate shall be issued until such Notice of Intention has been filed and an Information Card issued to the applicant as provided in said Article 4
. The registration certificate so issued shall show on its face that it is tax exempt. If the finding of the Board of Police Commissioners is that the requirements of Subsection (a) hereof are not met, no registration certificate shall be issued without payment of the tax prescribed in the appropriate section of this article. (Amended by Ord. No. 173,283, Eff. 6/26/00, Oper. 7/1/00.)
(d) If at any time any activity listed in Subsection (a) as being entitled to the issuance of a tax exempt registration certificate is conducted in such a manner that, had it been disclosed in the application described in Subsection (c), would not have entitled the person carrying on the activity to a tax exempt registration certificate, or if the net proceeds derived from those activities named in Subsection (a) are not used for a purpose approved therein, any tax exempt registration certificate therefore issued shall be void and the full amount of the tax shall be due and payable.
(e) Subject to the provisions of Subsection (d) hereof, upon the Director of Finance’s issuance of a tax exempt registration certificate to a person, any tax, including any penalty or interest accrued thereon, owing by such person pursuant to any provision of this article for any period prior to such issuance by virtue of carrying on any activity described in Subsection (a) hereof in the manner prescribed therein which would have entitled such person to receive a tax exempt registration certificate shall be canceled as if it had never become due or owing, and, if paid, a refund thereof shall be made, subject to the provisions of Section 21.07 of this Code, as if it had been overpaid. (Added by Ord. No. 149,522, Eff. 5/23/77.)
Except where a repealing or amendatory ordinance specifically provides otherwise, the amendment or repeal of any portion of Article 1 or Article 1.5 shall not be construed to operate as a release or waiver of any liability or sum of money which may be due or owing to the City of Los Angeles from any person under the provisions of said articles as they existed prior to such amendment or repeal. The rule of construction required by this section is declared to be in clarification and confirmation of the existing intent of said articles, and is not to be construed as applying solely to the effect of repealing or amendatory ordinances adopted subsequent to the effective date of this section.
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