Are LA City relocation assistance payments tax exempt?

April 14, 2015 12:41 PM

I live in Los Angeles in an apartment. In 2014 my landlord decided to demolish my building to build condos, so I received a $15k payment of relocation assistance from my landlord as mandated by the Rent Stabilization Ordinance of the Los Angeles Municipal Code and overseen by LA Housing Development (now the Los Angeles Housing and Community Investment Department, I guess). Is this exempt from State and Federal taxes?

This seems to be something that affects very few people, so I'm having trouble finding an answer online.

The relevant relocation assistance info is here. (PDF).

The relevant municipal code is available here.

There was an LA Times article in 1989 about a bill to make them state tax exempt, but I can't seem to find out if that's law now.

Otherwise my taxes are very, very simple, so I'd prefer not to file an extension and pay an accountant for this one answer, so I'm asking here first in case anyone knows.
Thank you for any help you can provide.

posted by bluecore to Law & Government (3 answers total)

Have you tried calling the number listed on the first pdf?
posted by acidic at 1:26 PM on April 14, 2015

If you haven't tried calling the LAHD yet, I'd try that - I usually find them quite helpful and rarely wait on hold for more than 5 minutes. I'm not sure if they'll know, but it's worth a try. (866) 557-RENT.
posted by insectosaurus at 2:33 PM on April 14, 2015

Response by poster: Thank you for the replies. Unfortunately, LAHD directed me to talk to my landlord, while my landlord didn't reply to my information request. They'd been unhelpful throughout the entire experience to drive people out sooner, so no surprise there. Overall, LAHD had been helpful, but I think this area is in their blind spot for helping people.

If anyone's searching for info on this problem at a later date, I found this thread at fatwallet.com to be informative.
posted by bluecore at 6:56 PM on May 25, 2015