Philadelphia tax fever: Bloggers get hit
The Founding Fathers must be rolling in their graves. In Philadelphia, home of the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall, the city government has proposed smacking bloggers — our generation’s pamphleteers — with a $300 business tax. Yes, they are now requiring a license for Internet activists and hobbyists to exercise their free speech.
Even though small-time bloggers aren’t exactly raking in the dough, the city requires privilege licenses for any business engaged in any “activity for profit,” says tax attorney Michael Mandale of Center City law firm Mandale Kaufmann. This applies “whether or not they earned a profit during the preceding year,” he adds.
So even if your blog collects a handful of hits a day, as long as there’s the potential for it to be lucrative — and, as Mandale points out, most hosting sites set aside space for bloggers to sell advertising — the city thinks you should cut it a check. According to Andrea Mannino of the Philadelphia Department of Revenue, in fact, simply choosing the option to make money from ads — regardless of how much or little money is actually generated — qualifies a blog as a business. The same rules apply to freelance writers. As former City Paper news editor Doron Taussig once lamented [Slant, "Taxed Out," April 28, 2005], the city considers freelancers — which both Bess and Barry are, in addition to their blog work — “businesses,” and requires them to pay for a license and pay taxes on their profits, on top of their state and federal taxes.
The City of Brotherly Love is in dire financial straits, facing a $179 million shortfall for 2011. Same old tired liberal solutions: Tax, tax, tax. The blogger tax comes on top of new hikes on existing taxes, a new tobacco-products tax, a property tax increase and a higher commercial trash fee.
Time for overtaxed Philadelphians to go Galt. What are you waiting for?
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She should just be bold and send them a letter stating that her blogging is by no means am activity for profit.
Profit = Revenue – Expenses
I doubt her expenses are less than $50, and she shouldn’t need an accountant to make that claim.
I would imagine this is but one of many more states to follow suit with this tax!
L
Just don’t pay it. It’s like here in CA where the state sends letters warning citizens to cough up sales tax due for online purchases. Throw them away.
I like the idea of involving the founding fathers. She should send them a note that says “Ben Franklin/Sam Adams says ‘F— You.’”
Hmmm…
Sounds oddly familiar…
Another government jihad against the people. Is it about the tax money or control?
Let me guess…STARVE THE BEAST!
Their blogging has no impact on Philly infrastructure whatsoever. Tell them to ESAD!
So ignoring the law is okay because you’re using civil disobedience to make a political statement.
Please tell me why you think illegal immigration is wrong.
Somehow, I would think a blogger could get around this via creative network management ….?
QUEUE John Lennon!
Let me tell you
How it will be.
There’s one for you,
Nineteen for me,
‘Cause I’m the taxman.
Yeah, I’m the taxman.
Should five percent
Appear too small,
Be thankful I don’t
Take it all.
‘Cause I’m the taxman.
Yeah, I’m the taxman.
If you drive a car,
I’ll tax the street.
If you drive to city,
I’ll tax your seat.
If you get too cold,
I’ll tax the heat.
If you take a walk,
I’ll tax your feet.
Taxman!
‘Cause I’m the taxman.
Yeah, I’m the taxman.
Don’t ask me what I want it for,
If you don’t want to pay some more.
‘Cause I’m the taxman.
Yeah, I’m the taxman.
And my advice to
Those who die.
Declare the pennies
On your eyes.
‘Cause I’m the taxman.
Yeah, I’m the taxman,
And you’re working for no one but me.
John, not to answer for Philly, but…
That is beneath you. If you assert that we HAVE to obey every law passed, you are simply waiting for the law that makes you a slave.
Really…
Apples and oranges. The issue here is increasing taxes with little or no attempts to curb irresposible spending.
Example? CA is belly up and LA opens a 578 million dollar school worthy of a large corporate headquarters. Say what?
If for profit blogs are tax free, I am open to a discussion, but taxes need to be equatable and they need to be accessed for real needs.
The whores of government want your money…again.
I am shocked, shocked by this! You can make a profit by blogging? When did this happen?
Is this really a tax? Any income a blogger makes should be reported as income anyway.
Looks like a licensing fee to me (not that I like it). Do all activities for profit in Philly have to have a license? I doubt it. Is this more a censorship thing?
Now, now. The city fathers in Philly are just trying to share their pain. They figure if they are having a hard time, you should too.
No the issue here is not taxation, the issue here is the first amendment. the power to tax an activity is the power to control that activity. Bloggers have a constitutional right to freedom of speech. Therefore refusing to pay the tax is justified.
Both, as the pols need more of your money for their out of control spending addiction. And yes, they want complete control over us in every way imaginable.
The use of the term “pamphleteers” is right on in my opinion. Bloggers came into existence because the traditional press was in bed with the politicians, “framing” news, and engaging in out-right falsehoods. People like to throw around the idea of a seperation of church and state (many without actually knowing why) but what we really need is a seperation of the press and state.
Lemonaid stands.
Panhandlers.
Garage sales.
Student car wash.
Teen-agers mowing lawns.
Tar and Feather salesman.
pitchfork, rail, and rope salesmen.
Philly is an embarrassment to the country and has been for a long, long time.
There are enough cities in common with Philly to make a national bottom 25 list along with which political party dominates those cities governments.
Well the big difference is with taxes the peaple are ignoring a tax the peaple did not approve with immigration its the government that failing to inforce a law the peaple approved. But this type of thought is typical of progressives, make sure the other side has to live up to all aspects of the law while our side does not.
Pretty soon the Marxists are really going to have to get creative with their theft scams. I suggest taxing the nuts gathered by every squirrel within the city limits. This could be huge for the city.
I’m guessing that Ms. Mannino is not an elected official but an appointed bureaucrat. This would be YET ANOTHER example of taxation without representation.
I was actually leading to a point regarding changing the offending law, rather than just accomodating or avoiding it.
Since my purpose wasn’t apparent, I apologize.
I have 2 reactions to this news:
1. This can be a very blatant attack on free speech. By forcing what are essentially anonymous writers to pay for a license fee, some of these writers will shut down their activity. This is especially true for people who do not have 300 dollars to waste on government agencies.
2. From a purely financial viewpoint, this could be a good thing for some of us. Those folks who are paid on W2 and earn enough to get hit with the alternative minimum wage have no way to write off many of their expenses. However, if they operate a business then all of the business related expenses become tax deductible. Supose you take a trip to a TEA rally and report on this trip via your blog. With this legislation your entire trip becomes a tax deductible expense. Want to buy some books so that you sound wiser on your blog? Those books are tax deductible. Want to order some pizza so that you don’t become distracted from reading and updating your blog by cooking; also tax deductible.
I don’t honestly know which was the main motivating reason for someone to propose blog tax legislation; whether it was suppression of conservative blog voices or whether it was a desperate attempt to collect some more money for the state. However, if this legislation passes I can accurately predict that the Philadelphia city government will collect much less income than they collect now and that those who passed such a dumb bill will be fired from their jobs by voters.
Anyway from a purely financial viewpoint I would welcome this legislation. Since so many of us spend much of our free time on the internet and various blogs, then this legislation would allow most of our daily living expenses to become tax-deductible. Seriously folks, this is just one giant tax loophole.
The paper media have been complaining for a long time about bloggers because they are not as costly to produce and the paper media can not compete (or more importantly, anyone can do it, you know, those inferior people). They say they are leveling the field when they are essentially making the same complaint as buggy whip producers when cars became affordable. Adapt or die MSM. Free press depends on which ox is being gored, apparently.
This isn’t the beginning of the harassment, nor will it be the end. Truth is now hate speech. And the enemy has the politicians and judges and teachers and unions on their side.
I would suggest a fund to pay for fines and licenses imposed by the authorities, although I don’t believe that could possibly be accomplished without some sort of fine or license being imposed by authorities.
Don’t get too upset about this.After all Philadelphia is in the state of Taxylvania.I expect Pittsburgh to follow suit in 3..2..1.
if anything, blog revenue is OVERTAXED by the local communities. They will pay tax based on their income – which is derived from advertising.
The funny thing is it will just encourage bloggers not to live there and pay ANY income tax at all. Cities should be begging bloggers to write there. They bring in money from all over the world. They don’t use up any resources, and they pay taxes on all their income.
I’m struggling with this myself. I live in an income tax state. I make sales all over the world and could make these sales from anywhere in the world. The internet makes relocating to the best tax area more available than ever.
You want to tax bloggers, get ready to not have any bloggers in your town. Instead of looking at ‘revenue’, government would do good to look at incentives for growth (not taxes necessarily). They should beg bloggers to come to their city to pay income tax on their worldwide revenues.
Time to cut spending!!!! It is the spending and money mismanagement. Elected officials have gotten enough money. It burns their hands. They can’t spent it fast enough. Heck, they didn’t have to work hard to get it so why should they care how it gets spent. So now after over spending these same people are looking for more creative ways to tax other things. Soon we’ll have a birth tax.
And how much money will Philly get vs the amount of money spent to oversee the collection of said taxes? Philly would get more money from increasing the parking rates. Oh, they did that too already.
Come to Africa. Or Proxy. The governments here are friendly or not aware of the problems of which you speak. And if they’re not aware, then they don’t care or tax, or track or whatever.
I’ve been here for some years and believe me, you guys have way too much gov’t oversight. And you are way overboard about asking for permission or asking for forgiveness.
If Philly would just void their service union contracts and have just one employee per job (instead of 1.5 or 2) they would have a $179 million surplus.
George Harrison wrote that. I actually have a set of rare Beatle interviews on DVD. One of the reporters asked the Beatles how much of what they made they could keep.
None of them knew, and they just deferred to Brian Eptstein, their manager.
Well, turns out the fab four eventually asked someone who knew and they said, without empathy, about half.
Their reaction–”half? what do you mean half?”
Thus Taxman is born.
I believe the proper response to the city government of Philly is not just “no”, but “go f#$( yourself”. Just sayin.