Swan Fungus Goes Legit

Today will go down as an important date — perhaps the most important date — in the history of Swan Fungus. I am now officially recognized by the city of Los Angeles as a small business operating within city limits. I don’t know if that extends to areas beyond the City Of Angels, but at least in my zip code and the surrounding zip codes I am free to make as little money as I can as sole proprietor of Swan Fungus. Pretty cool, right?

…right?

Check this out: a few weeks ago I got a letter in the mail from city of LA regarding a citywide business tax that all people receiving income from a conducting business without an registration certification need to pay a fine for any income earned before registration. At first I laughed. I didn’t take the letter seriously because…let’s face it, I don’t make a lot of money. I earned about $1,000 last year in advertising income. I threw it in my manbag and went about my life for a week or two. Yesterday I was looking for a medical bill and I accidentally pulled the tax discovery form out of my bag. I decided to read beyond the first paragraph.

Hmm…registration form…applicable business tax…yawn. Oh wait, that’s this? “Failure to respond to this notification can result in further enforcement action, which may include an estimated assessment or the filing of a Criminal or Civil Complaint by the City Attorney’s office”!? Shit. I guess I should bite the bullet and just pay the registration fee plus back taxes. I thought for a moment of my stupid website. Why the hell do I care about making money in the first place? Because I’m broke? Yeah, I guess that makes sense.

I woke up to bad news this morning. The city of Los Angeles Parking Violations Bureau denied my request for an appeal. So I suddenly owe this fucking hellhole of a city $280 plus whatever back taxes I was going to be assessed when I visited the Office of Finance in Hollywood. I went for a morning run, but that didn’t help. I don’t make any money when I run. I went to Costco to refill the doctor’s latest attempt to normalize my stomach via pharmacology. Another sixty bucks down the drain. I don’t know why I chose today to take care of this problem — oh right, it probably had something to do with the twenty-day window in which to respond — who knew if there would even be enough money in my bank account to pay the city what I owe.

There was no line at the Office of Finance, which was nice. I sat down and handed over my forms, and sat there watching the women in the back room joking about what books they were reading. The guy who was entering my information into the system (Ugh! I so liked being off the grid!) wasn’t very talkative. He just told me that he was printing my registration, and that I would have to re-register by the end of the February in order to be considered up-to-date. He asked what my website does, a question to which I tried my best at formulating a serious response. He asked how much time I put into it, and I (embarrassingly) responded “I don’t know, an hour or two a day, tops?” I thought I was supposed to answer that way because he might tell me an hour or two a day does not a small business make. His next question threw me for a bit of a loop: “So, you’d say you work more than seven days a year?” Uh…yeah, I’d say so.

He started punching numbers into a calculator and then he hit me with the amount of back taxes I needed to pay: $22.35. Not bad! That’s, like, six Qdoba burritos. I can deal with that. The best part is, if I renew my registration by February I’ll be exempt from paying taxes next year because I don’t earn anywhere close to the $100,000 that would make me liable to pay city taxes. Sweet. So now I have a fancy little certificate of tax registration and I don’t have to worry about getting another threatening letter in the mail until I start making serious money. Which will never happen. I mean, look at this fucking website. It’s pathetic. I’m pathetic.

I’m going to go to trivia night and try to win some money. Maybe I can write it off as a business expense?

Hey, thanks for being here. I appreciate you.