Business Privilege

[rowyn]

Ysabetwordsmith linked to an blog post about Philadelphia taxing bloggers, which made me go "What? The city passed a tax specifically on blogging?" I followed the link chain back to Philadelphia's City Paper, which clarified the city is levying their $300 lifetime business privilege fee on anyone running a business in the city. Which seems almost reasonable until you realize that the city defines as "business" basically anything you could possibly due which results in someone giving you any amount of money, no matter how small.. So the blogger averaging $25 in annual revenue from ads is a "business" in the city's eyes, and needs to pay a flat fee for the privilege.

I don't know if Philedelphia is actually unusual in having this kind of fee, or if they're just unusual in choosing to enforce it on people who don't make money. It does remind me how much the government in general hates micro businesses, though. If you don't have the kind of entrepreneurial plan that you want to gamble hundreds of thousands on (or can convince someone else to do so), governments in America would generally rather your business did not exist, and will fine/tax/regulate it accordingly.

This is not quite fair, because American governments at various level also have programs to encourage small businesses, and if you are willing to navigate a sea of endless redtape, you can possibly -- if you are lucky and belong to the kind of group that government programs like -- get more help than harm from the massive schizoid bureaucracies that rule us.

Sorry, I must be feeling excessively cynical today.

But taxes and fees (from all levels of government) are scary, scary things to me. I haven't considered them during the handful of times in the past that someone has paid me to produce a piece of artwork. Maybe I should have. I'd been thinking that my hobbies cost me far, far more than they've ever earned me, and that the IRS would regard it as a hobby and not something I needed to file for. But even if that is the attitude of the feds, what about the state? City? County?

"Hire an accountant", they told her. For her business that hadn't earned enough in two years to pay an accountant for one hour.

I've seen haikujaguar lament websites that don't have "donate" button. 'I want to support their work! Why won't they let me?'

Well. There's one answer for you. :(

Comments

More discretion than I'm comfortable with

[telnar.livejournal.com]

What you're describing is how a normal and reasonable human being would be likely to act -- not the worst that can happen.

Under many tax laws, they have the option to prosecute you for failing to pay taxes you've never heard of (and there's no statute of limitations if they decide you're committing tax fraud), and if they are slightly more generous than that, they can demand payment for the past [statute of limitations] years plus interest and penalties.

If they go the fraud route, you may win in court if you've never heard of the tax, but the process won't be fun and will cost far more than the tax.

Re: More discretion than I'm comfortable with

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

Well, anyone can always charge you for something you're not guilty of. Or sue you for something you didn't do or that doesn't deserve a lawsuit. That *is* scary but it's also kind of beside the point, unless they're actually doing it regularly.

Re: More discretion than I'm comfortable with

[rowyn]

The issue of being prosecuted for something you did and that is technically illegal, but that a reasonable person would not realize was criminal, is kind of the by-product of having way too many micro-manage-y laws, though. Or laws that are really vague. Like the teenager who was threatened with child-pornography charges for emailing a picture of herself in a bikini. x.x

Re: More discretion than I'm comfortable with

[telnar.livejournal.com]

I don't know the statistics, but in general I prefer to trust incentives than goodwill. I'd feel a lot more comfortable if IRS agents with a history of hassling people from whom little or no money was collected were fired (as opposed to protected by civil service law) and if courts routinely awarded compensation to anyone who demonstrated that tax charges brought against him were without merit.

Re: More discretion than I'm comfortable with

[rowyn]

The issue of 'the worst they can do' (even without prosecuting you for things you didn't actually do) is pretty widespread across various areas of law.

Re: More discretion than I'm comfortable with

[telnar.livejournal.com]

Agreed, and I'm against it in other areas as well.