Employee Data Request

As a part of the Business License Reform Project, the Revenue Bureau has been gathering employee data from Portland and Multnomah County businesses. This information has been requested on the City/County tax return (Combined Report Form) for the 2006 and 2007 tax year.

Beginning in June, 2008, the Revenue Bureau will begin making outbound phone calls to collect this information. These calls will only be made in cases where the employee data on the Combined Report Form was missing (or appeared to be incomplete).

The Bureau is requesting that businesses provide an estimate of the average sum of full-time and part-time employees working in Portland and Multnomah County during the most recently completed tax year.

The City of Portland is looking at potential changes in the way the business license is calculated. Some of these changes might include basing at least a portion of the business license on the number of employees located here. In order to assess the financial impacts of these potential changes, this employee data is needed.

Frequently Asked Questions

Question #1: How do I calculate the average sum of full-time and part-time employees in the County and City?

Answer #1: This is generally going to be the number of employees working at your Portland business location on an average day. A Portland dentist’s office that has a full-time dentist, a full-time receptionist, a full-time hygienist and a part-time office manager would generally report 4 as the number of employees for both the County and City. You can also refer to our worksheet on our website at http://www.portlandonline.com/shared/cfm/image.cfm?id=146351 for additional explanation.

Questions #2: What is the Business License Reform Project?

Answer #2: The City of Portland has been working with the business community and other citizens in making the business license calculation more equitable. Options are being explored, but additional data is needed in order to estimate the financial impact of some of the proposed changes.

Question #3: Will this increase my tax?

Answer #3: It is not known what the outcome of the Business License Reform Project will be, but it is the intent that the changes will not increase overall license/tax revenue paid to the City and County, although individual businesses could experience an increase.

Question #4: Is this information confidential?

Answer #4: The information on individual businesses will not be shared. It will only be examined and shared after it is combined with information with many other businesses.

Question #5: How do I factor part-time employees into the calculation?

Answer #5: If you had 6 half-time employees that worked throughout the year, you would count these as 6 employees (NOT 3) for purposes of this calculation.

Question #6: How do I factor seasonal employees into the calculation?

Answer #6: If you had 20 employees for 6 months of the year and only 4 employees for the other 6 months of the year, your average number of employees for the entire year would be 12. If you had 6 employees for 3 months of the year and 2 employees for the other 9 months of the year, your average number of employees for the entire year would be 3.

Question #7: What about employees that only spend part of their day in the City/County?

Answer #7: If you have 2 employees and each of them spends half of their workday in the City throughout the year, then you would have 2 employees for purposes of this calculation. If your only office is located in Washington and you send 8 employees into Portland to work on a 6-month remodeling project, then you would have 4 employees for purposes of this calculation.

Question #8: What do I do in cases where there is a lot of employee turnover?

Answer #8: If there is one position that turns over many times during the year, this would generally be treated as one employee for purposes of this calculation. For instance, if you have one employee that works for 6 months and then is replaced by another employee that works the remaining 6 months, you would have one employee.

Question #9: Do I include owners of the business if it is a sole-proprietorship?

Answer #9: Yes, they should be treated in the same way as other employees for purposes of this calculation.

Question #10: How do I find these numbers?

Answer #10: You can look to the quarterly IRS and Oregon payroll tax forms for assistance in compiling the information that we are requesting.