Are Writers More Equal Than Others?
“All men are created equal” says the seminal document of this country’s founding; but not all taxpayers are treated equally under the tax codes. Exceptions abound, and one battle over exemptions is heating up over the city of Los Angeles’ tax ordinance on home businesses.
The City Council has determined that a home business must be subject to business taxes like any other business. Some who work out their homes object vociferously. Members of the writers community are computer-clicking mad about the tax and the Writers Guild of America is reportedly filing a lawsuit in federal court to overturn it.
Some writers contend that if the city can offer millions in tax exemptions to the DreamWorks studio, as it did last year, the city should encourage the wordsmiths who are an irreplaceable foundation for the biz.
Symbolically, writers have been keeping government officials out of their homes for a long time. Witness Henry David Thoreau’s journal entry of Sept. 8, 1859: “I went to the store the other day to buy a bolt for our front door, for as I told the storekeeper, the governor was coming here. ‘Aye,’ said he, ‘and the legislature, too.’ Then I will take two bolts, said I.”
The question is, should writers working at home expect special privileges?
Indeed, some writers seeking an exemption from the city tax cite the fact that their trade’s product is protected under the 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. As is the case with churches, which share the 1st Amendment shield, they argue that they should have a special dispensation from the tax man. However, 1st Amendment protections don’t stop newspapers, radio or television stations from paying the business tax.
The issue of tax fairness has always been a difficult one to resolve. Authorities attempt to deal with it by levying taxes equally within a class, grouping together taxpayers that demonstrate some similarities. How a class is determined is a mystery. The current L.A. business tax charges one rate for an advertising agency and a different rate for a collection agency.
If writers deserve an exemption from the business tax because, as they claim, they use no city services, what about an accountant working at home by telephone and computer who also does not add a burden to city services? If the council grants a break for writers, it should grant a break for other businesses that are determined to be in the same class.
Even if City Hall has legitimate reasons for taxing writers at home, it will have to consider carefully such an action, for, as Plato suggested, those who tell the stories also rule society.
Whatever the outcome at City Hall, the debate over the writers’ tax should be lively. After all, in one corner will be folks whose stock-in-trade is adroit and mischievous use of the language. On the other side will be the writers.
The rules for this debate on taxes were laid down long ago. To paraphrase one of America’s greatest writers, Mark Twain: I shall never use profanity except in discussing taxes. Indeed, upon second thought, I will not even use it then, for it is inelegant, and degrading--though to speak truly, I do not see how taxes are going to be discussed worth a cent without it.
