(A) Every person engaged in business in the city, whether or not at a fixed place of business within the city, shall pay a business license tax in an amount as established by resolution of the City Council. A business license tax shall be due for each of the categories of business set forth in this section.
Item Number | Category |
Item Number | Category |
1. | Basic business license tax. Annual tax shall consist of a lump sum tax plus an incremental charge per additional employee. This tax is applicable to all businesses and activities except for those businesses and activities set forth below. Included herein are all mercantile, manufacturing, and other businesses, including but not limited to professional and personal services, state-licensed savings and loan associations, regulated railway, telegraph and telephone companies, companies transmitting or selling gas or electricity, and convalescent homes. |
2. | Out-of-town contractors. Annual tax is applicable to out-of-town contractors, or, as an alternative, out-of-town contractors may obtain a quarterly business license at 60%, or a single job business license at 30% of the basic business license tax which would otherwise be due. |
3. | |
4. | Gardeners. Annual tax is applicable to an individual gardener with no additional employees. |
5. | Advertising business. Annual tax is applicable to such activities as outdoor advertising signs and advertising on benches. Quarterly tax is applicable to the distribution of handbills, flyers, and circulars for businesses not otherwise licensed. |
6. | Entertainment permits. Annual tax is applicable to adult businesses regulated by Chapter 17.44. Daily tax is applicable to circuses, carnivals, and fairs. Daily tax is applicable to public dances. Annual tax is applicable to cabaret dances. |
7. | Residential rental businesses. Annual tax is applicable to apartment houses and any other rental property used for dwelling purposes, including mobile homes, containing two or more rental dwelling units. Annual tax is applicable to hotels, motels, and lodging houses. |
8. | Vehicle-based businesses. Daily tax is applicable to advertising vehicles. Annual tax is applicable to business vehicles and delivery trucks. |
9. | Miscellaneous businesses. Daily tax is applicable to auctions, except auctions limited exclusively to auctioning real estate. Monthly tax is applicable to a public dump. Quarterly tax is applicable to a peddler, solicitor, retail traveling salesperson, or itinerant vendor. Annual tax is applicable to child care centers and foster homes; Christmas tree sales and similar season-specific sales; fortune telling regulated by Chapter 5.76; junk dealers and automobile and truck dismantlers; and shoeshine stands. Per-barrel tax is applicable to oil well operators. |
10. | Special business activities. Daily tax is applicable to special business activities. |
11. | Commercial and industrial property rental businesses. Annual tax is applicable to the business of owning non-residential real property and/or building and renting or leasing the same to another party for the other party's commercial or industrial purposes. |
(B) In no event shall the total annual business license tax payable by any single business in any single year exceed 20 times the lump sum tax component of the basic business license tax as established by resolution of the City Council.
(C) Any business with employees who do not work entirely within the city on particular premises shall pay a rate of tax computed on the monthly average of the number of employees who perform work within the city, it being intended that such apportionment bears a fair relationship to the proportion of the taxing activity actually taking place within the city.
(`83 Code, § 5.12.010) (Ord. 85-28 § 3, 1985; Ord. 87-23 § 4, 1987; Ord. 91-22 § 1, 1991; Ord. 93-21 §§ 4, 5, 1993; Ord. 2015-07 §§ 3, 4, 2015)
All business license tax amounts shall be annually adjusted in accordance with the formula set forth in this section.
(A) (1) In May of each year, commencing in 1994, the Finance Department shall determine the April cost- of-living standard as indicated by the Consumer Price Index as prepared by the United States Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Standards, for the “All Urban Consumers” category of the Los Angeles-Anaheim-Riverside metropolitan area. The index base year to be used shall be 1993 = 442.8 or subsequent indices as may be adopted by the City Council.
(2) The index level for April shall be compared with the index level for April of the preceding year. The percentage increase or decrease shall be applied to all of the dollar amounts contained in the current business license tax resolution adopted by the City Council. The base level for business license taxes shall be as established by Resolution No. 93-52. These percentage increases shall be applied as set forth in division (D) of this section.
(B) The annual adjustment shall not become effective unless specifically adopted by resolution of the City Council. The City Council may modify any tax calculated pursuant to division (A) of this section as the Council may deem appropriate, provided however, that the increase for any single year shall not exceed the limitation set forth in division (C) of this section.
(C) Regardless of the increase in the Consumer Price Index, no basic business license tax increase shall exceed 5% in any single year. There shall be no limit on the percentage of decrease.
(D) Exact dollar amounts determined pursuant to this section shall be used from year to year to calculate business license taxes adjusted for changes in the cost-of-living standard. The tax rate to be charged each business, occupation, and profession shall be the calculated tax rounded downward to the nearest integral dollar, and shall be the rate in effect for the following fiscal year.
(`83 Code, § 5.12.020) (Ord. 93-21 § 6, 1993)
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