l-vint

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L.A. Taxes Scaring Business Away

Your article on corporate headquarters leaving Los Angeles (“Corporate Powers Keep Leaving,” July 14) reminded me that within the past few weeks I read that business taxes are much higher in Los Angeles than elsewhere in the Southland. I also seem to recall a magazine article recently indicating that all California business taxes combined were much higher than a number of other states. Could it be that these higher taxes have something to do with making California corporations less competitive, and thus more likely to leave or be taken over?

Could it be that part of the reason Los Angeles (and California) businesses are being taken over rather than doing the takeovers is in part due to the inability of California-based businesses to compete in the world economy? Perhaps other states and communities show their interest in keeping and nurturing their businesses by demanding lower taxes.

Your article summed up many of the consequences of losing corporate headquarters, such as loss of contributions for the arts. Other ancillary consequences may include the lessened need for law firms, advertising firms, and even a reduction in the need for such simple services as restaurants, dry cleaning firms and real estate agencies.

While many local jobs have been created in the past couple of years, it has been reported that those jobs are in service industries at salaries of between $25,000 and $40,000, whereas the jobs lost between 1990 and 1995 were in the $45,000 to $75,000 range. In this area, people making under $40,000 are not likely to purchase Mercedes Benzes, Cadillacs and multi-million-dollar houses; nor are they likely to require the services of $400-per-hour attorneys.

It’s time for the governments around the Southland to wake up and do something before there is no business left in the area.

JAMES E. VINT

President

Westmont Enterprises

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