Several Firms Wrongly Listed as Tax Scofflaws

The Los Angeles city controller’s office said Wednesday that several companies were incorrectly identified as having failed to pay their business license fees, but officials stood by the validity of a study which concluded that the city is losing $12 million a year to tax scofflaws.

A spokeswoman for City Controller Rick Tuttle said that two companies, Paramount Pictures and Stephen Bocho Productions, were mistakenly included on a list provided to The Times. Three other companies--Southern Pacific Co., Heinz and Exxon--were identified in staff working papers as having failed to pay taxes, but were later found to be exempt from the tax. They were not included in the controller’s final report.

In an attempt to identify scofflaws, the controller cross-referenced lists of companies that use city services with lists of companies that have paid their business license fees.

The study, released Tuesday, concluded that about 30% of companies that use city services or lease city facilities have not paid their taxes.

“It’s difficult to match these things up,” said Deputy Controller Tim Lynch about errors.

“These are the kinds of things that happen in individual cases, but we’re talking about tens of thousands” of companies represented in the statistical samplings taken by auditors, Lynch said.

“There is no question that we are still talking about the same volume” of uncollected taxes, Lynch said.