Despite issuing two memorandums to the contrary last week, Pasadena officials now say they haven’t officially decided to tax Netflix and other streaming services yet.
City Manager Steve Mermell said Tuesday the idea is still being investigated by the city attorney’s office.
“It’s something that we should have reviewed internally before that got put out there,” Mermell said. “There is a number of questions that we need to do our due diligence on and then we need to share that both with the council and the public.”
In a memo to Mermell last Thursday, Finance Director Matthew Hawkesworth said he had ruled in his capacity as tax administrator that the city would tax streaming services at the same rate as cable services through a new interpretation of an existing Utility User Tax passed in 2008.
The administrative ruling, which the UUT ordinance allows the tax administrator to make without council or voter approval, would go into effect in January, according to the memo and an interview with Hawkesworth.
The same information was sent out as part of the city council’s weekly newsletter Thursday. Both memos state the finance department has been working on the determination for “several months” with their consulting firm, MuniServices, which has advised at least 45 other California cities they could do the same.
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