I got a letter the other day from the City of Oakland which is still puzzling me despite numerous phone calls to state and city officials. The salutation is "Dear Business Owner (s)", which is weird, because I've never owned a business. Then it starts, "Thank you for replying to our notice regarding the AB63 Business Tax Registration Project." Again weird, because I don't recall replying to any such notice. Then it continues, "We will need additional information to determine if you are subject to the City of Oakland's Business Tax an/or your tax liability." Fuck, I'm being audited, by THE CITY OF OAKLAND!

This had to be a mistake, right? I lived in Oakland from around mid-January of 2002 until mid-September of the same year, but I never owned a business there. I was a contract photographer working exclusively with two companies, Action Shooters and Brightroom. It never occurred to me that I was a "business," but when I called to talk to Keith G. Pryor of the Revenue Division, I was told exactly that. According the City of Oakland, I was a business. Who knew?

Once that was determined, I now I had to cough up a bunch of documents including tax returns for the last 3 years, which, of course, I don't have at my fingertips. The 2001 return is stored in Arizona. I filed my 2002 return when I was living in Samoa and I doubt I have a hard copy anywhere. 2003, I filed online and was able to print a copy from turbotax.com. I need to hunt down these documents lest the wrath of some tax bureaucrat comes crashing down on my financial house.

The funny thing is that they can't really hope to recoup a serious amount of money from me. I declared a decent amount in 2001, but I wasn't living or working in Oakland. In 2003, I was in the Peace Corps and made a grand total of $2305. 2002 is the only year in question and I was working sporadically while I waited with diminishing patience for the Peace Corps to send me my assignment. I'm not 100% sure, but I'm going to guess that my taxable income that will interest the City of Oakland is around 5 grand, and that's a generous guess.

According to Mr. Phelps, the business tax rate is "1.8% per 1000 dollars". He said exactly that. (isn't that the same as 1.8% per 100 dollars?). But I only lived in the city. All the work I did was outside of city limits, so therefore, only 30% of my gross receipts are taxable. So maybe I owe 30% of 82 bucks or $24.60 (plus interest and penalties, which are a joke, since I had no idea that I needed to pay this tax). It's not as if I was trying to evade the Oakland tax man. This is just silly.

Here is the pertinent section of the Oakland Tax Code (note the clear and concide prose):

All persons, whether or not they own, lease, occupy or otherwise maintain within or outside the City of Oakland a place or premise upon or from which they engage in business, shall nevertheless be deemed to be engaged in business within the City of Oakland when through the physical presence of themselves, their employees, or their agents, engaged in the business of providing services subject to business tax under section 5-1.28 and 5-1.29 of the Oakland Municipal Code; the following apportionment guidelines shall apply:

All persons engaging in business activities shall include the total gross receipts from work performed within the City; in addition, if such person owns, leases or otherwise maintains within the City a place or premises from which such person engages in business activities outside the City, such person shall include 30% of gross receipts from work performed outside the City in the measure of the tax.