Tag: John Hart

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In brief: Court rules on tax suit, CPD report released, and more

Novelists John Hart and Corban Addison (pictured here with their attorney Renée Flaherty in 2019) are freelancers who work from home or remote locations, and who sued the city and county over the business license tax. The city lost the case brought by Addison in circuit court, and the Virginia Supreme Court is now considering the city’s appeal. Photo: Eze Amos

To tax or not to tax

The Virginia Supreme Court is considering the merits of an appeal brought by the City of Charlottes­ville in a lawsuit over who is required to pay its business license tax.

Best-selling author Corban Addison sued the city in 2019 after receiving a letter telling him he was required to pay the tax based on his income as a freelance writer for current and previous years.

“I have lots of author friends, and none of them at that point that I knew was paying a business license tax in the county or the city,” Addison says. “It was just sort of logical because I wasn’t inviting customers. I didn’t have… a physical plant that was just creating intellectual property and licensing it to publishers.”

Addison, who is also an attorney, read the city code and didn’t see how it applied to freelancers. 

“My response to the city was, how am I a service? I mean, that really is the nub. The fundamental issue in the case, even now in front of the Virginia Supreme Court,” says Addison.

The Charlottesville Circuit Court agreed with Addison and ruled against the city. The Virginia Supreme Court heard arguments in the city’s appeal on April 20.

Attorney Keith Neely with the Institute for Justice, the organization representing Addison, says the Virginia Supreme Court’s ruling could have significance well beyond the City of Charlottesville.

“There are many municipalities across the state of Virginia that share similar tax codes,” says Neely. “So this could have some far-reaching ramifications on taxpayers across the commonwealth.”

A similar lawsuit brought by author John Hart in Albemarle County has been stayed while the Charlottesville appeal continues.

Same pattern

Last week, the Charlottesville Police Department released its 2021 annual report, revealing the continued disproportionate arrests of Black residents.

Both in 2020 and 2021, 56 percent of people arrested in Charlottesville were Black, while 42 percent were white. Only about 15 percent of the city’s population is Black, according to the 2020 census.

However, 2021 had 831 arrests—a slight decrease from 2020’s 922 arrests.

Last year, there were no homicides, but around a 20 percent increase in “crimes against persons,” including 19 forcible rapes, 121 aggravated assaults, and 496 simple assaults. In 2020, there were four homicides, 17 forcible rapes, 115 aggravated assaults, and 368 simple assaults.

Though there was a slightly more than 5 percent drop in “crimes against society” in 2021, there was about a 17 percent rise in “crimes against property,” largely burglaries, destruction of property, thefts of motor vehicles, and other larcenies. The largest uptick was thefts of motor vehicle parts or accessories, which rose from 47 incidents in 2020 to 172 in 2021.

Despite calls from community members to reallocate police funding to community services, this month City Council approved a $20 million CPD budget for the next fiscal year—a nearly 7 percent increase from last year.

CPD’s 2021 annual report shows that arrests in the city have dropped, but the disproportionate arrests of Black people has continued. 
Photo: City of Charlottesville

In brief

High roller

It could be your lucky day—a Powerball ticket worth $50,000 purchased at the Fas Mart on Rolkin Road on November 1 hasn’t been claimed. The ticket matched four of the first five winning numbers—9, 25, 34, and 44—and the 8 Powerball. The winner must contact the Virginia Lottery before 5pm on May 2 to take home the prize. 

Order up

After doing takeout only at its new IX Art Park spot for the past two years, Lampo will reopen its original Belmont location for dine-in this summer. But if you still want to grab a slice to go, Lampo2GO will remain open at IX.

No relief

The Virginia Rent Relief Program will stop accepting new applications on May 15. State officials claim the program has recently received a surge in applications, and may not have enough funding available to fulfill the requests. Those from households that make less than half their area’s median income—or with one or more people who have been unemployed for at least 90 days—will be prioritized until the deadline. 

Slow down

The family of Rahmean Rose-Thurston unveiled a new memorial on Fifth Street last week, in honor of the 23-year-old Charlottesville resident who died in a motorcycle accident on the road in 2020. In the last six years, seven people have died in accidents on Fifth Street. Last month, the city lowered the speed limit from 45 to 40 mph, and announced plans to hire an engineering firm to consider additional safety improvements.

Anti-anti-racism

Former Agnor-Hurt Elementary assistant principal Emily Mais filed a lawsuit against Albemarle County Public Schools claiming school employees harassed and retaliated against her after she used the term “colored people”—instead of “people of color”—during a training session, and complained about the division’s anti-racism policy. The complaint alleges Mais, who is white, was forced to resign due to a “racially hostile and divisive work environment” in August. 

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Pushing forward: Albemarle writer’s lawsuit goes to trial

Freelance novelists John Hart and Corban Addison (pictured here with their attorney Renée Flaherty in July) are suing over a business tax they call unconstitutional. PC: Eze Amos

After paying nearly $11,000 in taxes to Albemarle County, freelance writer John Hart will have a chance to get a refund. 

On December 4, Judge Claude Worrell of Albemarle Circuit Court ruled that Hart’s lawsuit against the county will proceed, rejecting the county’s request that it be dismissed. Hart, who filed the lawsuit in July, claims that the county’s business tax violates the First Amendment and is unconstitutionally vague. 

The tax excludes staff writers for “the institutional press: newspapers, magazines, radio, and television,” says Renée Flaherty of the Institute for Justice, who is representing Hart. “If Hart were one of those speakers, he wouldn’t have to pay the tax.”

The law “is very clear that discriminating among speakers violates the First Amendment,” says Flaherty.

Citing the 14th Amendment, Hart and his attorneys also claim that the county’s tax code is “vague,” and doesn’t list freelance writers among the businesses and services that must pay business taxes.

“Tax officials can basically go after anyone they want,” says Flaherty. “And any ordinary person who’s looking at the code wouldn’t be able to tell that a novelist like Hart is going to be taxed.”

However, the county claims that because Hart writes manuscripts of novels and sells them to a publisher, he runs a personal business. Hart also claimed himself as a business by filing a Schedule C to report profit or loss on his income taxes, according to Senior Assistant County Attorney Anthony Bessette. 

“All persons engaged in a business need a license,” says Bessette. “And every business must pay a business license tax,” if they earn over $100,000. (Writers who earn less pay a flat fee starting at $35 in the city and $50 in the county.)

In response to Hart’s vagueness claim, Bessette said the county’s tax code includes the catch-all phrase, “repair, personal, business, and other services,” which covers all of the occupations not directly listed as those who must pay business taxes, and that freelance writers and journalists have been taxed at the same rate as Hart.

If the county were to exempt Hart from paying business taxes, it would have to repeal taxes for all county residents whose businesses “amount to expressing themselves,” Bessette concluded.

But Hart, who has written six New York Times bestselling thrillers, says he does not consider himself a business.

“It’s been so obvious to me for years and years that [Albemarle’s] the kind of place that welcomes creative people,” says Hart. “But this changes the way I feel…they clearly view me more as an ATM than as a contributing member of the artistic community here.”

Hart filed his suit alongside fellow novelist Corban Addison Klug, who filed a separate lawsuit against the City of Charlottesville. Klug, who has written four novels about human rights issues, was also not aware that he needed to pay business taxes, and ended up paying the city almost $2,600 for three years in back taxes, penalties, and interest. 

A hearing on the city’s motion to dismiss Klug’s lawsuit will be held December 18.

As for Hart’s case, Albemarle has until January 13 to file a formal response to his lawsuit. The case will then proceed to discovery and a trial.

“We’re hoping that the tax is struck down as applied to novelists like Hart and they can no longer be unconstitutionally taxed,” says Flaherty.

Both Hart and Klug want the courts to refund the business taxes they’ve paid. 

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‘The squeeze’: Novelists sue city and county for business tax bills

Novelists John Hart and Corban Addison (pictured here with their attorney Renée Flaherty) are freelancers who work from home or remote locations. They’re suing the city and county for collecting taxes on what they say are their constitutionally protected endeavors. Eze Amos

John Hart and Corban Addison Klug both make a living writing novels. Unlike writers for newspapers and magazines, which state code exempts from business license taxes, Hart and Addison received sizable tax bills from Albemarle County and Charlottesville that they say are unconstitutional.

The two men filed lawsuits against the city and county July 24, represented by the Arlington-based Institute for Justice, a “nonprofit, public interest law firm that litigates cutting-edge cases,” according to attorney Renée Flaherty.

The libertarian institute focuses on government overreach in cases involving private property, occupational overregulation, free speech, and school choice. Its most famous case, and the only one it lost before the U.S. Supreme Court, according to its website, was Kelo v. New London, which spurred an eminent domain backlash against government confiscation of property for private development.

In this case, the city and county “unconstitutionally discriminate between different kinds of speech,” says Flaherty. “Instead of protecting and supporting its creative community, Charlottesville and Albemarle County have decided to treat it like an ATM.”

Klug, who writes under the name Corban Addison, has lived in Charlottesville since he attended law school here in 2001, and has written four novels that address human rights issues. Because he offers no goods or services for sale in the city, he was unaware he was subject to business taxes—until he got a notice from Todd Divers, the commissioner of revenue, who also is named in the suit, advising him he may need to pay up.

“I’m committed to paying my taxes,” says Klug. But he believes he should be treated the same as the press and also get First Amendment protections.

Klug says he ended up paying the city almost $2,600 for three years in back taxes, penalties, and interest on his gross receipts, which don’t allow the deductions for travel or other expenses that he would get on his income taxes.

Hart, a former lawyer and financial adviser, spent 15 years trying to be a published author. His six literary thrillers in Southern gothic settings have been New York Times bestsellers. “I need a laptop and pure imagination, he says. “I don’t understand why the county feels they’re entitled to a piece of that.”

In 2016, he—many other local freelance writers—learned that the county, which had hired two full-time business-tax auditors, did indeed believe it was entitled to a piece of his income going back to 2011. He’s coughed up nearly $11,000 in taxes, penalties, and interest, which he paid under protest.

Besides claiming the business tax on freelance writers is unconstitutional, Hart and Addison also allege city and county tax officials “exploit” the code, which they say is vague and doesn’t list writers or authors among those businesses and services that must pay 36 cents per $100 on gross receipts if they earn over $100,000. Writers who earn less pay a flat fee that starts at $35 in the city and $50 in the county.

While other localities like Arlington have business taxes, they don’t target writers, says Flaherty.

When individuals are self-employed, they file a Schedule C on their income taxes to report profit or loss, and local tax collectors have access to those forms.

In 2016, Charlottesville didn’t regularly go after freelance writers. Divers told C-VILLE then, “The juice has got to be worth the squeeze. I don’t know how much it’s worth with our workload. We do check Schedule Cs occasionally.”

Divers declined to comment about the suit, and Bill Letteri, his counterpart in the county who is named in Hart’s suit, did not respond to an inquiry from C-VILLE.

The authors want the courts to declare the business license ordinances unconstitutional and to refund the taxes they’ve paid.