Bought the assets of a business (website URL, brand name, customer list) but started a new LLC. Bought the assets for a small amount (less than $15k), we didn’t want to buy the corporation/company because we didn’t want to deal with surprise liabilities, etc.

Anyway CDTFA (california tax) is chasing the owner of the original company for what I imagine are small potato amounts if we bought the assets for less than $15k. Maybe he’s unresponsive so CDTFA is bugging us instead. I’ve told CDTFA we don’t work with that guy anymore, he retained is corporation, we only bought assets and operating our own LLC and the transaction between us has been closed and completed. CDTFA says we needed some tax clearance before transfer of ownership (weird if we didn’t buy the corp). CDTFA says we’re on the hook for garnishment. We’re a micro business in startup mode don’t know why they are wasting time and resources on us for something we don’t even owe them.