Hotel owners and operators were entitled to refunds for tax penalties since they proved that the employee they hired to handle their taxes was dishonest about paying the taxes and about filing the tax returns, a California court recently held.
The plaintiffs in the case of Gajanan Inc. et al. v. City and County of San Francisco et al. – four hotel owners and three hotel management companies – sued the City and County of San Francisco and its Office of the Treasurer and Tax Collector to seek refunds of around $1.7 million in penalties that the City assessed for failure to pay certain hotel taxes and failure to timely file returns.
