Business Tax Reform Meeting Planned for Downtown L.A.

The Business Tax Advisory Committee (BTAC) will host a tax reform meeting for downtown businesses at noon on Feb. 22 at the Los Angeles Public Library’s central branch on 630 W. Fifth St. in downtown Los Angeles.

The meeting will cover a BTAC report on proposed changes to the city’s business tax, which the committee is trying to persuade the city to institute this spring. Some of the issues raised by the reform proposal include simplifying tax discovery and getting more businesses into compliance, adding additional funding to the Tax and Permit Division, which collects business taxes, taking some of the complexity out of the current business tax rules, changing provisions which permit double taxation and updating the appeals process to make it easier to resolve business tax disputes.

“What we need at these public hearings are comments on issues, questions or problems that the public has that we’ve overlooked,” said Marc Needleman, owner of Los Angeles-based property management company Mabela L.P.

“We will summarize what we are doing and we hope to get comments on what we need to be doing,” he said.

Needleman is helping to organize the BTAC meeting. BTAC is also hosting similar meetings in several other areas in Southern California in coming weeks.

For more information on the meeting, call Marc Needleman at (213) 622-2702.—Alison A. Nieder