$4.363.81 bill a wake-up call.

Byline: Mariel Garza

ANGELENOS, take it from me. If the city of Los Angeles mails something to you, read it immediately - no matter how dull or inapplicable it seems.

Otherwise, it could cost.

Here's a true story. Tuesday, I arrived home after a long day at my W-2 job at the Daily News to find a letter from the city's Office of Finance (the aptly acronymized OOF) saying that I hadn't paid my business taxes. Furthermore, my "failure to respond" to previous letters prompted OOF to randomly assess a tax on me: $4,363.81, including interest and penalties. (It must be good to be the government. How I would love to slap a tax on people who ignore my requests.)

It was particularly bad timing. My stomach was already tied in knots from worry about how I'm supposed to pay property taxes and federal tax the same April week that my paycheck will be cut in half from my company-mandated furlough.

The OOF letter didn't mince words. If I didn't respond by April 10 (the day property taxes are due, thank you city of L.A.) ... well, things would get ugly, in a municipal code action kind of way. Oof, indeed.

My first reaction was outrage because I was either a victim of identity theft or the government. Either way, it's big trouble. I'm still trying to get the DWP to take an erroneous extra capacity trash bin charge off my bill six months after it mysteriously appeared.

It's true I had ignored previous letters from OOF telling me to pay my business tax. Because I don't have a business! Besides, I knew from covering business tax reform some years ago that small businesses and individuals are exempt from the tax up until they make $100,000. All I had was a few, occasional bucks in freelance income that I already paid taxes on.

But the letter freaked me out enough to call. After a conversation with a cheerful customer service representative, who told me I was one of many thousands who received similar OOF missives, and later with the head of the OOF Antoinette Christovale herself, here's what I learned:

A) I am a business. According to the city, anyone who earns even $5 from freelance or contract work is considered a business (Does that mean that now I need a business permit, too? I'm afraid to ask.);

B) small businesses such as myself are only exempt from business tax if they register with the city and provide details about how much money we earn. If you don't tell them how much you earned, they will make up a figure, which is what happened to me. And you have to keep telling them how much you earn every year before Feb. 28 (in other words, you have to register to prove that you don't have to register);

C) if you don't register with OOF on time (I didn't) you will pay the tax you would be exempt from - plus penalties; and,

D) ignorance of the rules is not a valid excuse.

It's such an absurd bureaucratic trap, not to mention egregious invasion of privacy, that I'd be amused if I weren't stuck in it. Isn't is just like L.A. City Hall to concoct ways to harass legitimate middle-class working people who are lucky enough to get a few extra bucks doing this or that, who dutifully report it to the government and pay taxes on it, but to turn a blind eye to the hundreds of illegal street vendors pulling in untaxed, untraceable wads of cash in plain view?

I love this city, but sometimes it's so hard to live here with policies that seems to abuse the regular residents and reward the undeserving. I fantasize about moving to one of the happy, clean surrounding cities. Burbank or Culver City, places where City Hall might not be perfect, but would it hike parking meter fees up as much as 400 percent in the middle of a global economic crisis so it could afford to continue to provide free cars, gas and insurance to city officials with six-figure salaries? Four bucks an hour is tough, even if you do have a pocketful of quarters.

My OOF outlaw days are all straightened out now - I think. I don't have to pay the $4,363.81 tax, but I do have to pay taxes on the small amount I did earn because I didn't register with OOF on time. So, I will never again ignore any city missive, even if it refers to me as Manuel Gupta and assumes I have a herd of cattle in my garage. I implore you to please do the same to anything the city mails you or posts on your door or hangs from on a tree on your street. Once I didn't read a notice from street services that was taped to my fence. The next morning, I was surprised to find a six-foot trench blocking my driveway.

But that's another story.