Here’s the story:
A Los Angeles Superior Court judge has ordered Prestige Parking Inc. to
pay $238,000 in delinquent rents owed to the city, officials said
Tuesday.The
city sued Prestige in December 2005 for failing to pay $20,000 in rent
in 2002 and paying no rent from December 2004 to April 2005 on a city
redevelopment agency-owned lot it had leased at 240 S. Hope St.A criminal case is pending against Prestige and its principal for failing to pay thousands in city parking taxes.
My sources tell me that this has been a long process. The operator hasn’t paid its rent and the recourse that the city had was to sue the operator in court. This is a civil action to collect the rent money. The criminal action, which could result in jail time follows. The criminal action relates to underreporting income and not paying the parking tax.
The procedure began when the City of LA hired an outside firm to audit garages and discover whether or not they had been reporting all the income in a number of garages it operates. The result is that the operator had underreported income substantially and has not paid the resulting taxes and fees. I understand that this process has literally taken years, however even through the wheels of justice grind slowly, the do grind.
Legitimate operators applaud this effort by the city. They collect and report income, pay their taxes and then find themselves in a non competitive position with operators that don’t pay their taxes. The tax in LA is a lowly 10% but that can make a large difference when bidding a location.
JVH
