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Philly Requiring Bloggers To Pay $300

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the blood-from-blogger dept.

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.'"

6 of 456 comments (clear)

  1. Bad Summary in OP by Stormy+Dragon · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  2. Re:Lesson learned? by Shakrai · · Score: 4, Informative

    $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.
  3. Re:Not all bloggers, just those that make money by iamwahoo2 · · Score: 4, Informative
    In the article, it explicitly states that she does not run a business, which would make blogging a hobby at which she makes a small amount of income. As long as she declares this as part of her personal income, then this is perfectly legal. The business privelige license is for businesses (according to the cities' own website), so it makes no sense that she would need to purchase this license, or pay taxes as if she were running a business.

    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.

  4. Re:Not all bloggers, just those that make money by cptdondo · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  5. Re:Not all bloggers, just those that make money by sglewis100 · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  6. Being an (ex) blogger from Philly.... by xandercash · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.