[Adopted 4-3-1978 by Ord. No. 78-2]
This article shall be known as and may be cited
as the "Tarentum Borough Business Privilege Tax Ordinance."
The following words and phrases, when used in
this article, shall have the meanings ascribed to them in this section,
except where the context and language clearly indicates or requires
a different meaning:
Any location where a business, trade, occupation or profession
is conducted for a period in excess of five days.
The Borough of Tarentum.
The carrying on or exercising for gain or profit within the
Borough of Tarentum of any occupation, trade, profession, business,
vocation or commercial activity and shall include but not be limited
to those enterprises engaged in by retail and wholesale dealers and
vendors in goods, wares and merchandise, restaurant operators, processors,
hotel operators, motel operators, warehousemen, upholsterers, doctors,
lawyers, dentists, engineers, architects, chemists, chiropractors,
pharmacists, chiropodists, certified public accountants, public accountants,
public relations counselors, advertising counselors, employment counselors
and agents, promoters, factors, real estate brokers, barbershop operators
and beauty shop operators, cleaning, pressing and dyeing establishment
operators, laundry and launderette operators, shoe repair shop operators,
tailors, seamstresses, electrical, plastering, bricklaying, carpentry,
heat, ventilating, plumbing and painting contractors, contractors
engaged in the class of heavy building or other construction of any
kind or in the alteration, maintenance or repair thereof, demolition
contractors, repairers of electrical, electronic and automotive machinery
or equipment or other machinery and equipment, owners, keepers or
operators of public garages and outdoor or open-air parking lots for
the storage of motor vehicles and other wares and merchandise and
all other businesses, trades, occupations and professions in which
there is offered any service or services to the general public or
a limited number thereof.
Any lawful occupation customarily conducted in a dwelling
by the occupants only as an incidental use; provided, however, that
the conduct of any business, trade, occupation and profession as defined
in "person" or "business" hereof shall not be deemed to be a home
occupation.
Any individual, partnership, limited partnership, association
or corporation, profit or nonprofit, foreign or domestic; whenever
used in any clause prescribing or imposing a penalty, the term "person"
as applied to partnerships and associations shall mean the partners
or members thereof and as applied to corporations, the officers thereof.
Any act or instance of helping or benefiting another for
a consideration.
The person, public employee or private agency designated
by resolution of the Borough Council of the Borough of Tarentum to
administer and collect the tax levied by this article.
The twelve-month period from January 1 to December 31, inclusive,
except for the year 1978.
Any business that is conducted at one location for less than
60 consecutive calendar days.
For the tax year beginning January 1, 1978,
and each tax year thereafter, the Borough hereby imposes an annual
business privilege tax and licensing requirements in the manner and
at the fees and rates hereinafter set forth. Such a tax shall continue
in force on a tax-year basis without annual reenactment unless the
rate of the tax is subsequently changed.
Every person desiring to engage in or hereafter
to continue to engage in a business, trade, occupation, profession,
vocation or commercial activity at an actual place of business in
the Borough shall on or before the first day of January or prior to
the first day of commencing business in such tax year make application
with the Borough Secretary for a business privilege license for each
place of business in the Borough, upon an application furnished by
the Borough Secretary. Each application for a business privilege license
shall be signed by the applicant if a natural person and, in the case
of an association or a partnership, by a member or partner thereof
and, in the case of a corporation, by an officer thereof, and upon
payment of a fee as set forth from time to time by resolution of the
Borough Council, each applicant shall receive a business privilege
license from the Borough Secretary, which license shall not be assignable.
In the case of loss, defacement or destruction of such business privilege
license, the person to whom the business privilege license was issued
shall apply to the Borough Secretary for a new license for which a
fee as set forth from time to time by resolution of the Borough Council
shall be charged. Such licenses shall be conspicuously posted in the
place of business of every such person at all times. For the year
1978, the application shall be made on or before 60 days from the
passage of this article or prior to the first day of commencing a
new business.
Beginning with the effective date of this article,
every person engaging in a business, trade, occupation, profession,
vocation or commercial activity in the Borough of Tarentum who maintains
a place of business therein shall pay an annual business privilege
tax for the tax year at the rate of $25.
Persons employed for a wage or salary, agencies
of the government of the United States or of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,
nonprofit corporations or associations organized solely and exclusively
for religious, educational or charitable purposes and not conducting
any regular or established business competing commercially with any
other person subject to the tax herein imposed, any home occupation
or any temporary, seasonal or itinerant business are exempt from the
provisions of this article.
A.
Every person subject to the payment of the tax hereby
imposed shall file a return as required by this section, which return
shall be made upon a form furnished by the Tax Collector, Every person
making such return shall certify the correctness thereof.
B.
Every person subject to the payment of the tax hereby
imposed, who has commenced business prior to the beginning of the
tax year, shall, on or before February 1 following the commencement
of said tax year, file with the Tax Collector a return setting forth
his name, his business and business address and such other information
as may be required.
C.
Every person subject to the tax hereby imposed who
commences business subsequent to the beginning of the tax year shall
within 40 days from the date of commencing such business file a return
with the Tax Collector setting forth his name, his business and business
address and such other information as may be required.
D.
For the year 1978, the tax return shall be filed on
or before 60 days from the passage of this article.
E.
At the time of the filing of the return the person
making the same shall pay the tax hereby imposed in the amount of
$25 to the Tax Collector.
A.
The Tax Collector, on behalf of the Borough, shall
collect and receive the taxes, interest, fines and penalties imposed
by this article. It shall be his duty to keep a record showing the
amount received by him from each person paying the tax and the date
of such receipt.
B.
The Borough Secretary and the Tax Collector are hereby
charged with the administration and enforcement of this article and
are hereby charged and empowered to prescribe and issue all forms
necessary for the administration of the tax and the issuance of business
privilege licenses and may adopt and promulgate with the approval
of the Council of the Borough of Tarentum rules and regulations relating
to any matter pertaining to the administration and enforcement of
this article, including provisions for the examination and correction
of returns and payments alleged or found to be incorrect or as to
which an overpayment is claimed or found to have occurred and any
rules and/or regulations promulgated pursuant hereto.
[Amended 12-27-1999 by Ord. No. 99-2]
The Tax Collector shall collect, by suit or
otherwise, all taxes, license fees, interest, costs, fines and penalties
under this article remaining due or unpaid. If for any reason any
tax or license fee hereby imposed is not paid when due in each tax
year, interest at the rate of 10% per annum on the amount of the unpaid
tax or license fee and an additional penalty of 1/2 of one 1% of the
amount of the unpaid tax or license fee for each month or fraction
thereof during which the tax or license fee remains unpaid shall be
added and collected whenever suit is brought for recovery of the unpaid
tax or license fee. The taxpayer shall, in addition, be liable for
the costs of collection as well as for interest and penalties. The
Tax Collector may accept payment under protest of the tax claimed
by the Borough in any case where a dispute arises as to the Borough's
claim for the tax. If a court of competent jurisdiction thereafter
decides that there has been overpayment to the Tax Collector, the
Tax Collector shall refund to the taxpayer the amount of said overpayment
made under protest.
A.
Any person who fails or refuses to procure a business
privilege license when so required under the terms and provisions
of this article or who fails to pay the tax or license fee required
herein or who fails to keep his license conspicuously posted at his
place of business as required herein shall, upon conviction before
any District Justice or court of competent jurisdiction in the County
of Allegheny, be sentenced to pay a fine of not more than $600 for
each offense and costs and, in default of payment of said fine and
costs, be imprisoned for a period not exceeding 30 days for each such
offense.
[Amended 12-27-1999 by Ord. No. 99-2]
B.
The failure of any person to receive or procure the
necessary forms for making any application or return required by this
article shall not excuse him from making any such application or return
or paying the tax herein levied.
It is hereby declared to be the intention of
the Council that the taxes and license fees imposed under this article
shall be in addition to any and all other taxes and license fees imposed
by the Borough of Tarentum.
A.
Nothing contained in this article shall be construed
to empower the Borough of Tarentum to levy or collect the tax or license
fee hereby imposed on any person or any business or any privilege
or any portion of any business not within the taxing power of the
Borough of Tarentum under the Constitution of the United States or
the Constitution or Laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
B.
If the tax or license fee or any portion thereof imposed
upon any person under the provisions of this article shall be held
by any court of competent jurisdiction to be in violation of the Constitution
of the United States or the Constitution or Laws of the Commonwealth
of Pennsylvania, the decision of the court shall not affect or impair
the right to impose the tax or license fee or the validity of the
tax or license fee imposed on other persons as herein provided, it
being hereby declared as the intent of the Borough Council that this
article would have been adopted had such unconstitutional, illegal
or invalid sentence, clause, section or portion thereof not have been
included herein.
