Sounds like the city is looking to collect tax revenues from your members...
Whether or not you're under an obligation to provide identifying info (or whether your members would be under any obligation to pay taxes) is a question of local law (CA state and city ordinances). If this were in MA (where I'm an attorney), third parties such as landlords typically have no obligation to identity their business customers. It is also unlikely that users of a coworking space would be subject to local taxes (in our case triggered by having business "property" such as computers, desks and chairs located within the municipality). You're not in Massachusetts, however, so what's true for you and your members can be quite different. Seems like you have 3 broadly defined options. 1. Spend some $$ and have an attorney provide an opinion as to whether there's any legal obligation to respond to the City's request (and more importantly, if voluntarily responding to their request could subject you to liability under any state or federal privacy laws). It would also be helpful to have a considered opinion as to what circumstances give rise to tax liabilities under local laws. It's most likely that potential tax consequences arise from generating some revenue from work, trade or commerce performed within the City's boundaries. A legal analysis of the situation will let you know exactly where you stand on a variety of issues and permitting you to tailor your response accordingly. 2. Your second option is to send a polite response declining to provide specific info (citing general privacy concerns absent a legal obligation to disclose). Because you want to be a responsible corporate citizen, however, you should invite the city to cite specific state or federal law compelling you to disclose or, in the alternative, offer to communicate specific concerns to your members so they can contact city authorities or otherwise act accordingly. 3. Your third option is to simply ignore the correspondence and see whether any follow-up actions are initiated (not necessarily recommended, but doing nothing is always an option so long as you're prepared for ultimately having to act). Wish I were based on the West Coast... this is exactly the kind of thing I'd love to bite my teeth into as a champion for small business (seems like the city is trying to bully those who are least equipped to defend themselves). By the way, I'm not about to insert the long legal-ese type of disclaimers used by most of my bretheren. I'm assuming the obvious -- that you and everyone who reads this understands I'm not rendering legal advice and you shouldn't consider anything I've said as anything more than the off-the-cuff ramblings of a fellow space owner. Keep us posted. ---------------------------------------------- Jack Speranza Principal, Main Street Ventures 15 Main Street, 2nd Floor Hopkinton, MA 01748 T: 508.858.5440 x101 F: 508.858.5441 Toll Free: 866.472.1035 http://mainstreetventures.com http://zenbungalow.com ---------------------------------------------- On Aug 21, 2:30 pm, Sasha V <[email protected]> wrote: > Hello everyone, > > Yesterday, we received a letter from the City of San Francisco > demanding that we release the names of all our San Francisco members > to "insure that all commercial tenants in the facility are registered > with the Office of the Treasurer and Tax Collector". > > 1. Have you received this letter from SF or a similar letter from your > city government? > 2. How have you handled it? > 3. If you haven't, what's your instinct on this? > > Ours tells us that our clients are not commercial tenants, but members > of a private club and thus we're under no obligation to disclose any > information about them in this KGB-like shakedown. > > It'd be great to hear from the group. > > Thanks! > Sasha Vasilyuk > Sandbox Suites -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Coworking" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/coworking?hl=en.
