From: [b--ea--y] at [po-box.mcgill.ca] (bart)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 1995 15:10:14 -0500
Subject: Paul Mavrides on BOE
- -Poster: [b--ea--y] at [po-box.mcgill.ca] (bart)
Also from the newsgroups.
bart
[ Article crossposted from alt.slack ]
[ Author was Rev. Ivan Stang ]
[ Posted on 25 Nov 1995 01:23:42 -0500 ]
October, 1995
Dear Comic Creator,
The California State Board of Equalization, with its action
against me, has threatened our livelihoods, our legal status as literary
authors, and our First Amendment right to free speech.
Under the Sales Tax Board's severe and invidious interpretation of
what qualifies as an author's manuscript, comic creators are classified as
mere manufacturers of camera ready printer's aids, rather than as authors.
Authors are exempt from sales taxation because the State
recognizes that placing sales tax on authors' incomes would inhibit use of
an elemental and Constitutionally protected form of free expression by
burdening authors and publishers with what would literally be a tax on
speech itself. The Tax Board doesn't care if comics authors, publishers
and readers alike suffer under such a burden. Our work, in their
discriminatory eyes, is only a "template for manufacture" and does not
contribute to society in any sphere outside that of monetary commerce.
The Tax Board does not make idle threats. If you live in the State
of California, you should know that:
The Board has promised that, should it prevail in my case, it
intends to obtain your name and address from your California publisher,
track you down (literally coming to your home and knocking on your front
door if necessary, as they did mine), forcibly (under threat of removal of
your legal right to do business, thus depriving you of any ability
whatsoever to earn an income from freelance work within California, except
as an employee of someone else's business) register you as a California
business, back audit your financial records all the way to 1990, and
impose on you the same type of assessment they have claimed against me
(plus interest and penalties), based on your earnings past and present
that you have derived from your comic work produced by your California
based publishers.
You will them be personally responsible for payment of this sum to
the State as soon as possible. If you do not pay, the State will rescind
your permit to do business (your Seller's permit) and place a lien on your
money and property (causing damage to your credit rating for at least
seven years, due to the presence on your credit record of the
aforementioned lien. If this happens, you can pretty much forget about
buying a house or car through a bank loan.). If you ignore the lien, the
State will simply empty your checking and savings accounts at will, and
possibly seize your tangible business and private property for auction to
pay off your debt. In addition, the rescission of your Seller's Permit
will prevent you from making new publication contracts with California
publishers and earning income from your work.
When the Board audits your publisher's business records for names
and addresses of resident California comic creators, sooner or later, you
will find yourself in the exact same position as myself. There is nowhere
you can hide from the immense power of this State tax bureaucracy. The
Board is trying to make me serve as a bullet with your name on it and the
State of California has aimed their gun right between your eyes.
Sounds lovely, eh? A huge tax bill that you and you alone are
liable for, based on your California royalty earnings of the past five
years; additional business accounting costs to you; lower royalty rates as
publishers adjust their budgets; the possibility of denial of credit or
banking loans; the loss of readership due to higher cover prices on your
books; the possible bankrupting of your California publisher; and the
prevention of your ability to earn royalties, residuals and advances due
to the withdrawal of your Seller's Permit by the State Government.
Readers and fans across the entire world who follow the work of
California based comic creators might be denied future work from both
established and new talents in the comics field as the financial damage
from the effects of the BOE decision percolate throughout the entire
comics publishing industry.
You aren't helpless, you know. Together, we can fight this
autocratic assault on our profession and gain rightful and legitimate
recognition as authors.
I intend to contest the Equalization Board on this First Amendment
issue, with the financial aid of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and the
American Civil Liberties Union, to the United States Supreme Court, if
necessary. I cannot stress emphatically enough that the Board must be
challenged on this issue by all of us together. I cannot do it alone. We
need to stand together on this issue. If the State prevails, it could very
well lead to the destruction of the alternative and marginal comics scene
in California as we know it. At the very least, the Board's action will
severely restrict all comic creators' First Amendment speech rights and
deny us legal status as authors, downgrading throughout America the legal
and public perception of our work (and that of all comics) as valid works
of literature.
With your help we will win.
Sincerely,
Paul Mavrides
- --
Copyright 1995 by Rev. Ivan Stang / 1st Orthodox Stangian
MegaFisTemple Lodge of People's Covenant Church of the
Wrath of Dobbs Yeti, Resurrected / The SubGenius Foundation,Inc.
PO Box 140306 Dallas TX 75214 / Fax 214-320-1561 / PRABOB
http://sunsite.unc.edu/subgenius -- SubSITE of Slack
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From: [b--ea--y] at [po-box.mcgill.ca] (bart)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 1995 15:10:04 -0500
Subject: CBLDF press release
- -Poster: [b--ea--y] at [po-box.mcgill.ca] (bart)
The following was posted on rac.misc recently and cross-posting to relevant
groups was encouraged so naturally I thought of you all :) I have some
comments on this but I'll save them for a moment when I have a little more
time.
bart
[ Article crossposted from alt.slack ]
[ Author was Rev. Ivan Stang ]
[ Posted on 25 Nov 1995 00:32:39 -0500 ]
>From the Comic Book Defense Fund:
PRESS RELEASE 10-95
100th Anniversary of the Comic Strip May Be Its Last
California Zaps Cartoonists and Children's
Books with an Unconstitutional Tax
"It's sad and ironic that California, a state that has figured so
prominently in the development of the medium of comicsxshould now come to
stand for the forces of darkness and repression. If the implications of
California's tax board-that comics are not literature but simply a
commodity-are allowed to stand, I guess I'll have to send back my National
Book Critics Circle nominationsxas well as my Pulitzer." Art Spiegelman
(author of Maus)
Comics Creators Denied Rights as Authors
For the last four and a half years California's State Board of
Equalization (BOE) has been dunning California resident, Paul Mavrides, a
cartoonist, for back sales taxes that Mavrides says he does not owe. The
BOE bases its 1991 demand on the assumption that cartoonists are not
authors (by law, the BOE cannot require authors to collect sales tax on
manuscripts delivered to publishers located in California). The BOE claims
that because cartoonists write with pictures and words rather than words
alone, they are not writers at all, and do not deserve the exemption given
to other authors. Paul Mavrides has consistently maintained that as a
comics creator he is unquestionably an author and is entitled to the same
exemption the government grants to other authors. The amount of money in
dispute in the Mavrides case is less than $5,000. According to the BOE's
misinterpretation, in addition to all other California comic authors,
creators of visually oriented children's books and editorial cartoonists,
no longer considered authors by the state government, are also liable for
the sales tax. However, the BOE is not waiting for an established
precedent with the Mavrides case - it is already seeking back tax payments
from The Creators Syndicate of Los Angeles for editorial cartoons
(Herblock, Doug Marlette and Stephen Chapman) that the syndicate
distributes to California newspapers.
Governor Wilson Backs Illegal Government Action
The Universal Press Syndicate and the United Feature Syndicate,
despite their out-of-state business locations, are also liable for this
sales tax and have registered strong protests with Governor Wilson,
stating that they are considering the withdrawal of their cartoon features
from the California press market. In response, Governor Wilson, through
his Governor's Constituent Affairs Representative, Mark D. Gursky, has
decided to back the BOE on this issue, despite the harm the Government's
decision will cause to newspapers large and small throughout the state.
The comics and editorial pages of all California newspapers will look
quite different after a state boycott by these features syndicates.
It is only a matter of time before the Board begins taxing children's
literature authors and their publishers within California. The Society of
Children's Book Writers and Illustrators and the Printing Industries of
California have registered their own protests with the BOE.
Worse yet, small independent publishers, self-publishers and
marginally successful authors will soon find themselves unable to
financially function under the state-imposed burden of this tax ruling
exclusively directed at, and only at, their chosen literary format -
unlike any other type of author or publisher - a classic illustration of
how the power to tax is also the power to destroy.
Under the State Tax Board's redefinition, creators such as Art
Spiegleman (Maus), Maurice Sendak (Where The Wild Things Are) and Dr.
Seuss (The Cat In The Hat) are no longer considered authors of literary
work by the California government; their works are no longer legally
defined by the Government as works of literature.
State Licensing Authors in Defiance of 1st Amendment
Even more onerous is that the BOE ruling has created, for the first
time in American history, a system of government licensing of authors.
Because of the BOE's requirement that citizens who collect sales taxes for
the State must do so with a mandatory state issued Sales Permit, a
revocation of this tax license for any reason at all will prevent an
author from receiving income from their California-published work and also
prevent them from arranging publication contracts. The de facto censorship
and governmental control of elemental speech rights (by state tax
bureaucrats, no less) is an intolerable and shocking violation of basic
Constitutional liberties.
This new tax has not been passed by the legislature or signed into law
by the Governor. On the contrary, it is a tax imposed by a bureaucratic
decision. Ignoring numerous legal precedents, the tax board has read the
issue backwards, placing their duty to tax above the rights of the
citizenry. A Board staff auditor has admitted that the sales tax Board has
no objective standards whatsoever to determine whether an illustration is
"incidental" to or inseparable from prose editorial matter. When the Board
was asked for the specific criteria they used for this determination, they
replied, "There are none. But we know it when we see it." Furthermore,
this bureaucratically imposed tax has already wasted thousands of dollars
of taxpayer's money in legal fees and may go on to waste hundreds of
thousands of dollars more defending an illegal tax. Certainly California
is under pressure to generate new sources of revenue income, but
eradicating the constitutional guarantees of its citizens' freedom to
speak is no solution.
"The tax collectors need it spelled out sweetly and simply: Comics are
free speech, and you don't put a tax on free speech."
Matt Groening (creator of The Simpsons)
Alarmed by the broad First Amendment implications of the case, the
American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Southern California has filed
a legal brief with the Board challenging the tax bureau's ruling. The
brief contends that the arbitrary sales tax applicable to comics and other
cartoon illustrations creates a "differential taxation" scheme that is
clearly unconstitutional. The ACLU, which does not normally become
involved in tax issues, has also pledged to litigate on Mr. Mavrides'
behalf, if necessary.
The brief, authored by Paul Hoffman, Esq., the ACLU Foundation's
former Legal Director, argues that the BOE's position violates the first
amendment rights of cartoonists by denying them the same sales tax
exemption afforded to other authors under California law by creating a
"differential taxation" scheme that is clearly unconstitutional. Mr.
Mavrides has already filed a brief through his lawyers which deals largely
with the BOE's interpretation of California law, and additionally
presented Mr. Mavrides' Constitutional claim.
"xstop them damned pictures! I don't care so much what the papers write
about me- my constituents can't read; but, damn it, they can see
pictures."
- - Boss Tweed, 1901, responding to the cartoons of Thomas Nast
"For some ideas, the picture is the only practical means of
expression, or the only one capable of reaching a wide audience," said Mr.
Hoffman, "The economic damage to Mr. Mavrides from having to pay this tax
is significant, but the damage to our system of free expression is
incalculable. Free expression is too important to be sacrificed at the
altar of vague regulations that selectively tax illustration."
The state's differential taxation scheme could create a myriad of
arbitrary and discriminatory taxes against forms of media that use
illustrations to convey content and context, additionally placing
California publishers and authors at a competitive disadvantage with
residents of other states.
Paul Mavrides, who was featured as an "American Original" on the 1993
Thanksgiving broadcast of ABC's Nightline, also paints, draws and writes.
He has authored: The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers with Gilbert Shelton,
The Book of the SubGenius and Revelation X with Ivan Stang (Simon &
Schuster pub.), and various political comics. His paintings, drawings and
other works have been shown in New York, Paris, Los Angeles, Berlin, San
Francisco and San Diego. His poster design for the documentary Comic Book
Confidential won the Gold Plaque Award at the 1988 Chicago International
Film Festival. He was an invited guest at the 1993 Vancouver International
Writer's Festival and his work has appeared in the Village Voice, the New
Yorker, the San Francisco Chronicle, Whole Earth Review, Mondo 2000, New
Media Magazine and Interview.
Mr. Mavrides' legal bills, now approaching $70,000.00, are being
paid by the comic Book Legal Defense Fund, a charitable nonprofit
organization which defends the First Amendment rights of authors,
retailers, publishers and distributors of comic book and cartoon
literature.
To offer help or for further information call:
The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund
P.O. Box 693, Northampton, MA 01061
[413] 586-9525 or 1-800-99-CBLDF
Contact the California State Board of Equalization and
Governor Pete Wilson
and let them know your opinion on this issue:
PETE WILSON
Governor of California
Sacramento, CA , 95814
[916] 445-2841
JOHAN KLEHS
Chair, State Board of Equalization
450 N Street, MIC:71
Sacramento, CA , 95814-5691
- --
Copyright 1995 by Rev. Ivan Stang / 1st Orthodox Stangian
MegaFisTemple Lodge of People's Covenant Church of the
Wrath of Dobbs Yeti, Resurrected / The SubGenius Foundation,Inc.
PO Box 140306 Dallas TX 75214 / Fax 214-320-1561 / PRABOB
http://sunsite.unc.edu/subgenius -- SubSITE of Slack