UPDATE TO: Is Glendale “Business-Friendly”?
The 2008 Kosmont Rose Institute Cost of Doing Business Survey rankings for Glendale, Burbank, Pasadena, and Los Angeles show Glendale’s business taxes and fees are lower than in surrounding cities. In fact, Glendale alone has no gross receipts, payroll, retail, or flat rate taxes.
The Survey covers more than 400 cities across the country. Costs here are higher than in many other parts of the U.S., but in the immediate area, Glendale is a relative bargain.
Glendale utility taxes for business are almost even with Burbank’s, while both Pasadena and Los Angeles rates are higher. The 7% business taxes for all utilities except cellular telephones (now untaxed and the subject of the Utility Users Tax measure on the April 7 city ballot) are lower than the 10% and 12% Los Angeles rates, and the 7.67%-9.40% Pasadena rates (and Pasadena also levies a special 7.43% Street Lights and Traffic Signals tax on electric power users).
If businesses need to locate in Southern California, Glendale and other surrounding cities should be preferred to Los Angeles, according to a recent Forbes article mentioned in the Rose Report. This Business Life article summarizes the Kosmont-Rose Survey’s conclusions, which shows that some cities like Lancaster have very low costs, Glendale and others are in the mid range, and Los Angeles is among the highest in cost.
An independent panel commissioned by the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation uses its own criteria, along with the Kosmont-Rose study, to select a “Most Business-Friendly City” each year. As this blog noted in an earlier post, Glendale was a 2008 finalist. The Kosmont Corporation works with Claremont McKenna College’s Rose Institute of State and Local Government to conduct and produce the annual survey.
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