Sheriff's workers haunt L.A. hotel lobby to collect unpaid taxes

[DBoon]

Source: Los Angeles Times

Two sheriff's deputies sat conspicuously in the lobby of the Wilshire Hotel in Koreatown on Thursday. They were there to collect a multimillion-dollar debt.

In March, a Superior Court judge ordered the company that runs the hotel to pay the city of Los Angeles nearly $3.5 million for unpaid transit occupancy taxes, known as bed taxes.

City officials say the company, Majestic Towers, never paid up.

So they turned to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, which serves court orders, to play debt collector.

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-hotel-debt-20110422,0,3904443.story

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And how many police officers' salaries would those taxes have paid? How many municipal parks could be kept open?

[msongs]

1. each sheriff is billed at $560 a DAY - wow whatta racket nt

[DBoon]

2. Sounds cheap to me

Government entities need to charge-back other entities for their services. It's usually a fully burdened rate - includes salary, benefits and often allocated departmental overhead.

$560 a day for someone with professional law enforcement training is peanuts

[bahrbearian]

5. I quess it would be cheaper to hire Plumbers?

[fredamae]

3. Oh, were they finished @ Goldman Sachs. GE, BofA, Exxon and etc

collecting taxes from those Deadbeat Welfare Kings?

[DBoon]

4. Not unless those entities owe the City unpaid hotel occupancy taxes

The unpaid taxes of "Goldman Sachs. GE, BofA, Exxon and etc" are largely a Federal responsibility.

Most of these entities do not even have branch offices in the City of Los Angeles

[Downwinder]

6. In this town, that all goes to the Chamber of Commerce.