Ventura County Business Tax Exemption for Disabled Veterans

Ventura County Ordinance Code section 2006-2(g), re-enacted in 2002, exempts from the unincorporated county's business tax "any honorably discharged soldier, sailor, marine or airman" who has a service-connected disability, "due to this disability is unable to obtain his livelihood by means of manual labor", and is a qualified voter of the State. The applicant must furnish a certificate of physical disability from "a qualified surgeon of the armed forces" and proof of honorable discharge, and the certificates may not be lent to anyone else. That is the old disabled-veteran test of Business and Professions Code sections 16001 and 16001.5. Two later State laws are wider and bind the county: section 16102 says the board of supervisors "shall issue" a licence without cost to any veteran with an honorable discharge or a release under honorable conditions who hawks, peddles or vends goods the veteran owns, and section 16001.7 exempts any honorably discharged California resident who does the same; see the California entry. A veteran selling goods the veteran owns, disabled or not, can cite them. A veteran who is the sole proprietor of any business, services included, can also cite section 16001.8, which since 2020 bars local business license fees for an honorably discharged California veteran; whether the county treats its business tax as such a fee is not stated. A business selling alcohol is outside the peddling sections, and a VA rating letter is the practical proof today where the ordinance still names a military surgeon.