Last Thursday we reported on a $300 per annum business tax that Philadelphia, Pennsylvania was proposing on blogs. This new Stamp Act in the cradle of American liberty was more than a bit disturbing, and created quite a row.
But as was noted last week, the vast majority of these practitioners of free speech are laboring for love – and hardly making any money at all.
For the past three years, Marilyn Bess has operated MS Philly Organic, a small, low-traffic blog that features occasional posts about green living, out of her Manayunk home. Between her blog and infrequent contributions to ehow.com, over the last few years she says she’s made about $50.
…
She’s not alone. After dutifully reporting even the smallest profits on their tax filings this year, a number — though no one knows exactly what that number is — of Philadelphia bloggers were dispatched letters informing them that they owe $300 for a privilege license, plus taxes on any profits they made.
Even if, as with Sean Barry, that profit is $11 over two years.
Philadelphia Democrat Mayor Michael Nutter remains steadfastly impervious to these facts – and the uproar that immediately followed the announcement of the proposed Intolerable Act renewal. Today he publicly defended the King George-esque move:
“If you’re paying taxes to the federal government, you should be paying taxes to the city of Philadelphia,” Nutter asserted. “Whether you’re blogging or manufacturing or catering or whatever it is you’re doing. This is about business. If you are in business, making money, then you should operate in accordance with every other business in the city of Philadelphia, and get a Business Privilege License.”
Apparently he missed the inapplicability of the “making money” portion of his statement.
And I thought Democrats were the ones looking out for the Little Guy? It doesn’t get much littler than $11 made over two years – yet the uber-Liberal Philadelphia government is going after them with a vengeance.
Pay up – or shut up. Pricing the Little Guy out of the free speech business is not very sporting, O Ye Populist Democrats.
And therein lies the true import of this story – the assault on the First Amendment this represents.
The intent of Britain’s Stamp Act was twofold – one was to raise coin.
But the other was the more chilling – to monitor the content of all publications, so as to squelch dissenting speech. If the Crown didn’t like what you had to say, you didn’t get Stamped for publication.
Do we really want to allow the beginnings of a similar system to be set-up here?
Methinks not.
