Home-based businesses hit with tax bill

This tax season, many Los Angeles residents with home-based businesses received letters from the city that hit them right where they live and had frightening implications. Kevin Modesti in the Daily News.

The key line in the letters from the Office of Finance reads: "The following amounts are due and payable immediately: $4,363.81."

Imagine getting that tax bill - for freelance income that might have totaled only a few hundred dollars.

The letters, sent in March, were follow-ups to people who have worked as independent contractors but missed a Feb. 28 deadline for registering their businesses with the city's tax and permit division.