Correction appended.

Documents released Thursday by the campaign of Jo Ann Hardesty, a candidate for the Portland City Council, show she paid her business taxes the past three years.

Hardesty's opponent, Multnomah County Commissioner Loretta Smith, on Monday accused her of failing to register her consulting business, which raised questions about whether Hardesty owed back taxes for her business activities.

The records provided by Hardesty show her business, Consult Hardesty, did not make enough money to be subject to Portland or Multnomah County business taxes. Hardesty paid federal income and self-employment taxes on her business income, the records show.

The city and county exempt the first $50,000 in revenue a business generates from taxes. The most Hardesty reported her consulting business generating was $33,448.

People who operate businesses in Portland are required to register them with the city and may be subject to penalties if they do not. The city also prefers business owners keep it apprised of the business names they operate under. "But thousands do not, and we do not take any enforcement action if they fail to," Thomas Lannom, the city's top tax official, said in an email. Hardesty has an out-of-date city business registration.

At the time Smith called on Hardesty to release her business records, Hardesty's campaign cast the demand as "a cheap trick and typical, establishment dirty tactics to distract voters."

– Gordon R. Friedman

Have a tip about Portland City Hall? Contact Gordon: GFriedman@Oregonian.com; 503-221-8209

Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated the city of Portland's business registration policies. The city does enforce its business registration rules. It prefers businesspeople keep it apprised of their doing-business-as activities, but that is not enforced.