Council Votes to Cut Tax on Telemarketing Companies

Hoping to keep large telemarketers in Los Angeles and lure even bigger firms, the City Council on Wednesday voted 11 to 2 to chop the tax in half on telephone usage levied on such companies.

Council member Jackie Goldberg, who sponsored the measure, said independent telemarketers offer jobs paying $11 to $20 an hour and already bring the city millions in taxes on their gross receipts. Cutting the telephone tax on these companies from 10% to 5%, she said, will help Los Angeles compete with cities such as Culver City that have no telephone tax.

Goldberg said Southern California is becoming a magnet for such businesses because of its multilingual work force. Because telemarketers’ entire business is on the telephone, she noted, they pay double when taxed both on gross receipts and on phone usage.