Interesting. Recall that the Richmond tea party raised a stink when the Occupy Richmond folks were allowed to protest without having to pay the requisite fees and filings with the city of Richmond. The tea partiers decided to ask the city for their money back. What they got instead is an audit letter:
In response to the demand for a refund, the city has decided to target the Tea Party with a “comprehensive audit.”
According to the city, the Tea Party is delinquent in filing of Admissions, Lodging, and Meals Taxes with the city, despite never having charged for any of those things.
“We have never charged admission, or had lodging or meals associated with our rallies. Every month the forms are appropriately filled with zeros,” Owens said.
“Ms. Carr goes on to say that if we don’t respond within 15 days, the City will make a statutory assessment- meaning they’ll pick an amount to charge us,” she added.
In any other city, this could be fobbed off as retribution. As Richmond is still a southern city, we’ll just call it vengeance with a smile.
The audit letter can be read here.
Update
Here’s the Channel 6 report on this matter. It seems as though Jason was on to something (see the comments below). Richmond has a new computer program that rifled through the records and sent 700 such letters to various entities and individuals in the area dunning them for the proper paperwork and/or back taxes. That the tea party happened to be one of them is…wait for it…purely coincidental:
