Writers Guild Protests Home-Business Tax

Attorneys for the Writers Guild of America’s West Coast division have delivered a strongly worded, 23-page legal brief to City Councilwoman Laura Chick, who represents the west San Fernando Valley and has led the city’s drive to regulate home-based businesses.

The guild is joining others in what city officials call the “creative community”--primarily home-based artists and writers--in demanding an exemption from city business taxes. The City Council’s legalization of home businesses last November carried a reminder that home workers must register with the city for a $25 fee and then pay income tax that varies according to profession. For example, a writer earning $30,000 annually would owe $202.35.

Exemption proponents say they work sporadically, create little drain on city services and should not be treated like home-based accountants or computer specialists operating more as conventional commercial entities.

In the May 21 brief, Santa Monica attorneys Gary Bostwick and Paul Hoffman argue that Chick’s home occupation ordinance, and therefore the tax, is unconstitutional. They maintain that it “vests city officials with unfettered discretion to determine which writers are to be taxed, raising the specter that, without narrow, definite and objective standards, they will use it to grant or deny permits based upon the content of the writing.”

They also write that its “enforcement requires impermissible intrusion into homes, creative processes and private lives.”

Ken Bernstein, an aide to Chick who has specialized in the home business issue, said the brief mischaracterizes the home occupation ordinance.

“City Council could repeal the home occupation ordinance tomorrow and writers would actually have fewer constitutional protections than they did before,” he said.

The brief is being reviewed by the city clerk, chief administrative officer, city attorney and other council members, Bernstein said. While the document is not a guarantee of legal action, a guild spokesman has said that if the city refuses to offer an exemption, the guild might file a lawsuit.

In response to a motion by Chick approved in April by the council, several city officials are examining the exemption issue and are due to report their findings in the next several weeks.