Highway robbery!
For several years, I was helping my friend with his company in China. Every quarter, I would take a week of vacation from my day job, travel to China, and help with some finance stuff like planning and fundraising. Anyway, he pays for my airfare, but there are some other travel expenses out-of-pocket, so I file is as business expenses on my taxes. Typically it’s no more than a few thousand dollars a year. This hasn’t been a problem until I moved to the City of Orange. I guess either the IRS or FTB (California Franchise Tax Board) shares my tax data with the city. They came with a demand letter for me to get a business license and pay taxes on my business expenses. Since I have no revenue from my “business”, I end up paying the minimum, which is still $65 or something, and file paperwork. It’s total bullshit. The city does exactly ZERO for me. I don’t have any customers or suppliers. It just expenses from business travel that were not reimbursed.
As I’m cleaning out years of old mail, I found a folder of paperwork related to the business license. I finally got tired of the bureaucratic nonsense and stopped reporting expenses on my taxes. That didn’t matter for the City of Orange. Even though I filled out paperwork to end the business, each year, they would come and demand their license tax. I even found a OMC Violation/Notice of License Due citation. This is several years after I filed multiple times to terminate my “business”. They want me to renew my license (no way) and pay a $50 non-compliance fee. Otherwise they will fine me $1000 and throw me in jail for 6-months, all for $65 for a business tax on a non-existent business. This was back in 2017; I think I ignored it because what else can I do after filing the same paperwork multiple times with no effect.
As I go through old mail, almost every piece of mail from the City of Orange is for more money. I just got something about landscaping going up 14% for the next four years or something. Sewer costs have gone up, as well as a paramedic tax. In fact, I’ve paid the paramedic tax for 10 years. The first time I needed the ambulance, they promptly charged me $1900. It took months to get them to look at their records and acknowledge that I’ve been paying the insurance. I think they just charge you and see who complains. Super corrupt and incompetent.
That is why for every election, in the section for City of Orange, I will chose a random person that is not the incumbent. Sure it probably has no effect on the results, but it’s my protest vote against these corrupt a$$ holes.
Life with chronic diseases 