Sorry. I forgot to add that:
Yes, this typically happens when city agencies are looking for money
No, our "club" structure won't hold weight vs. a City, nor worth the
legal fight if you even think so.
Since we coworking centers are often facilitators of business growth,
we coworking people should know more about this compliance stuff and also do
our due diligence.
Thank you to Frank Cottle (http://www.ABCN.com) for providing this info.
Jerome
______________
BLANKSPACES
"work FOR yourself, not BY yourself"
www.blankspaces.com
ph: 323.330.9505 | 5405 Wilshire Blvd (2 blocks west of La Brea) Los Angeles,
CA 90036
ph: 310.526.2255 | 1450 2nd Street (@ Broadway), Santa Monica, CA 90401
On Aug 22, 2011, at 9:17 AM, Jerome Chang wrote:
> Hello everyone.
>
> I verified with a very seasoned exec suite veteran and he said this type of
> request is quite typical.
> The gist: the City does have the right to request this from the
> "landlord", which is effectively us by the way.
> Reason: typically to verify our various businesses at an address
> complies with USPS regs re:CMRA (commercial mail receiving agency).
>
> As mundane as this topic might be, this would be one of the resources we
> should provide to all coworking facilities if we were to have some kind of
> alliance which would make sure we aggregate this info. In a few weeks, this
> post will just disappear into our Google Group blackhole, and someone else
> will request the same down the road...which means repeating the same here
> again.
>
>
> Jerome
> ______________
> BLANKSPACES
> "work FOR yourself, not BY yourself"
>
> www.blankspaces.com
> ph: 323.330.9505 | 5405 Wilshire Blvd (2 blocks west of La Brea) Los Angeles,
> CA 90036
> ph: 310.526.2255 | 1450 2nd Street (@ Broadway), Santa Monica, CA 90401
>
> On Aug 22, 2011, at 8:17 AM, Jack Speranza wrote:
>
>> 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
>>
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>
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