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Subject:LICENSE for WRITING required in LA From:"Dimock, Dick" <red -at- ELSEGUNDOCA -dot- NCR -dot- COM> Date:Tue, 11 Nov 1997 10:00:08 -0800
And you thought the Certification Wars were intense.
Technical Writers, working out of their Los Angeles
homes, must be licensed and taxed. This law holds true
even if the writing is done away from home, "on location"
outside the City.
In this issue of the "MicroTimes" computer mag,
Robert Moskowitz exposes the City of Los Angeles
"Home Occupation Ordinance" now on the books.
Writers and other business people who work at home
must pay $25 for the annual permit and be taxed on
gross income. Annual taxes range upward from $106
base on the first $18,000 *or less* plus an additional
$5.91 per $1,000 above $18,000. Different kinds of
writers pay very different rates.
The Independent Writers of Southern California
(IWOSC) president, Marvin Wolf , has attacked the
law. He charges that ambiguity causes a real possibility
that a writer could be denied a license to write if the
writer does not satisfy some unspecified criteria (such
as political affiliation?). Thus individual writers could be
jailed for writing without a license. Plus, the City has the
power to inspect the writer's home for compliance with
this law and *all* other city codes. Visit the IWOSC
website at:
www.iwosc.org
The Writers Guild of America has filed a federal lawsuit
claiming the law is a violation of the US Constitution
in several major ways. Check their website
www.wga.org
and go to the "News" pages.
You TECHWR-Lers who live elsewhere in relatively
saner societies, please take note.
This city wanted to increase revenue, and passed a
badly written law. Now there is a lot of creative energy
going to waste, just in the battle to get the law
removed. Keep tabs on your own local lawmakers,
and don't let this happen.
At least the *Certification* advocates would not send
the city inspectors nor the police to one's home.
Would they?
Dick Dimock, Artfully Senior Tech Writer at
NCR Corp. Which pays taxes, lots of taxes, to the
Faire Citie of El Segundo, CA
the Faireste Tax Citie of them all
Mr. Dimock, representing himself as a wayward
Electrical Engineering Student, received his
International License to TechWrite from
Kellogg Cereals in an incredibly cheap promotional offer.
