Requests Climb for Free Ride on Parking Tax

Two things are certain in life, Benjamin Franklin once said, death and taxes.

Of course, old Ben never paid a visit to Los Angeles, where a new city parking tax is mired in a confusing assortment of regulations and exemptions that city officials still haven’t sorted out.

At first glance, the tax looks simple enough.

Beginning last Wednesday, fees charged on all privately owned parking spaces in the city were subject to the 10% tax. Apartment dwellers, commuters, baseball fans, shoppers and others will pay the surcharge each time they pull their automobiles in a pay-for-park space. City officials project that the tax will bring $22.5 million into city coffers each year.

But there is the tricky matter of exemptions. City officials say the Mosquito Abatement District, the Wilmington Cemetery District and dozens of other government agencies don’t have to pay the tax. Banks don’t have to pay either, although savings and loans do. Insurance brokers will pay, but insurance agents won’t.

Los Angeles County agencies need not pay the municipal tax, either. County employees, however, will be taxed if the Board of Supervisors and the South Coast Air Quality Management District agree on a plan to require county employees to pay for the parking spaces they currently get free, city officials said. That proposal has been hotly opposed by county employees.

Donald De Bord, chief of the tax and permit division of the city clerk’s office, is in charge of sifting through the confusion. Businessmen and bureaucrats have been phoning his office since the tax went into effect, all pleading convincing cases as to why they should not be taxed.

“We’re being advised by people, ‘This is what I am and I should have an exemption because of what I am,’ ” De Bord said, adding that he expects the bureaucratic dust to settle soon. “We’re in a learning process mode.”

The City Council and Mayor Tom Bradley approved the tax as part of a revenue package to finance the city’s record $3.68-billion budget, but several council members also hoped it would drive some commuters from their cars and into buses and car pools.

De Bord said it was still too early to tell if the tax will bring in less revenue than expected because of the growing list of exemptions.

Municipal taxes, such as business and utility taxes, often carry exemptions, De Bord explained. Banks and insurance companies, for example, pay higher tax rates to the state Franchise Tax Board and are thus exempt from most municipal taxes by state law. Those rules are being applied to decide who is exempt from the city’s parking tax.

The motorists who did pay the tax in its first week weren’t too happy about it.

“We’ve had a lot of public complaints,” said Tom Phillips, president of System Parking, which operates 30 lots in the downtown area and also the lot at Dodger Stadium. “The main complaint is that it seems to have taken a lot of people by surprise.”

The biggest tax chunk was paid by monthly customers, who found their paid bills for the month of August typically had $15 in taxes tacked on to a monthly charge of about $150, Phillips said.