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Philly Requiring Bloggers To Pay $300
Kurofuneparry writes "Pennsylvania generally and Philadelphia specifically have had a number of budget issues and some bloggers are seeing the results. From the article: '... yes, cash-strapped cities can't very well ignore potential sources of income. But at the same time, there must be some room for discretion and common sense.'"
If you RTFA, the $300 is the Philadelphia business privelege tax, so she's not being forced to pay for blogging, she's being forced to pay for blogging for money. Which is perhaps ridiculous, but no less ridiculous than it is for any other person in the city who has to pay it.
$600, not $20,000......
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Sadly, this won't work if she's a citizen and not a greencard holder. The US is one of the countries that taxes income based on both citizenship AND residency.
Doesn't matter if you are outside of the US, the IRS will ask for it's cut unless you are in a country that has a tax treaty with the US (and you fall within the terms of said treaty). Even then, most of the treaties require proof of payment with respect to the taxes due in the other country or the IRS still takes a cut.
If you are in a country without a tax treaty, then you are out of luck as most countries tax based on residency, therefor you are double taxed by the country where the work is done, and the US.
Code softly but carry a big magnet.
To make matters more difficult, if she were to attempt to declare this as a business, the IRS would expect her to demonstrate that she intends to turn this into a profitable endeavor, because running a home based business offers tremendous tax benefits and they try to crack down on the number of people who attempt to declare their hobby as a business.
In summation, It looks like the some of the City of Philadelphia employees do not understand their own laws, or tax law, on a most basic and simplistic level.
The kid made the money *after* they tried to shut her down, and the local businesses stepped in and gave her tons and tons of free publicity. Until her lemonade stand hit the papers, she was just another kid making a few $ a day.
RTFM - Les Schwab and a TV station stepped in and promoted her.
Until, people start winding up at the hospital with food poisoning. The rules surrounding food distribution exist for a very good reason. If you've ever suffered the effects of food poisoning you'd understand why it's so serious.
Net Income != Profits.
True, but not relevant. When I formed an LLC for my consulting side practice, nobody asked me if I had clients. Presumably, they could care less. Either way, I had to pay the cost of filing.
Being from Philly, I have had similar experiences. In my case, my website was registered to a Philly address, so they automatically sent out the "you must have a business license" letter. I was making no money. It's their number one automatic letter. My 3 year old daughter got one, once, even. (we're not sure how, in that case). All a person has to do is call the number on the letter and say "this isn't a business" and they'll put a check-mark in the "not a business" box. They don't care about the miniscule $50 every two months businesses. Just the profitable ones. This is why, when I lived in Philly, I always had a PO box or location outside the limits for business/website purposes. Mostly to avoid the hassle. The current township I live in is MUCH more reasonable, thankfully.