Open letter to the Gilroy Chamber of Commerce:
Thank you for allowing small business questions for your Legislative Summit on Nov. 13 for our elected leaders, federal, state and local.
Identity: I have represented Gilroy small and very small (zero employees) business owners before state and federal courts and agencies since 1980, with offices in Gilroy most of those years.
My practice extended to small business owners in the South County, San Benito County and all over the Central California Coast region. My question is for all small and very small business owners based on my experience the past 46 years.
Question. Existing law requires carriers of persons and freight, e.g., rideshare and food delivery drivers, Uber drivers, owner-operator truckers, etc., to submit honest tax returns and other reports to the government, with severe civil and criminal penalties for underreporting income, exaggerating tax deductions, claiming false credits, hiding income, filing false tax returns.
Public sector carriers, e.g., transit agencies, are, under State law (Pub.Util. Code 99268.17), authorized to omit most operating costs in submitting financial reports to the public, which has the effect of reducing the level of their insolvency, and falsifying the truth about their financial condition.
The obvious question is: Why does government permit the double standard? Private sector carriers are required to give honest answers on tax returns and other reports. While public sector transit agencies are authorized by the Legislature to omit most operating costs, e.g., fuel, when reporting their financial results to the public.
As a result, our law requires private sector carriers to make honest tax returns and other reports of their financial condition, but public sector carriers are allowed to make false reports about their financial condition.
So, comparing results of private sector carriers with public sector carriers is like comparing apples to lemons. The playing field is tilted such that even directors of transit agencies don’t know how insolvent their agencies are, and how much they lose in their operations.
Conclusion: We ought to require truth-in-transportation, all carriers to be honest in making their financial reports. Otherwise, public sector carriers cover up the truth about their insolvency and hide the extent of their inferior operations compared with their private sector competitors.
Consequently, we inflict unfair, anti-competitive government carriers to compete with their private sector competitors, who are truthful with their finances.
Joseph P. Thompson, Esq.
Formerly of Gilroy
