Yes, it’s true my friend. The cash strapped country is now taking to the blogging community for their next source of funds to blow. The first city on the list is Philadelphia, which has already sent out an undisclosed amount of documents to bloggers of all sizes to fork over $300 for a lifetime blogging license. To make things worse, a great majority of these bloggers aren’t even making over $300 with their blogging efforts. Many only making a few dollars a year, but are still required to fork over $300 for their blogger license.
In an article released by CityPaper, Bess is interviewed about her minimal blogging with eHow.com and her own personal, and the $300 blogger license letter she received from the state. Bess says:
“The real kick in the pants is that I don’t even have a full-time job, so for the city to tell me to pony up $300 for a business privilege license, pay wage tax, business privilege tax, net profits tax on a handful of money is outrageous,“.
Don’t think your blog is making enough money to be considered a business? An interesting statement from the article states:
“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.”
While a $300 blogger license may not seem like a lot to full time established bloggers, how about the millions of bloggers hosted on free services like Blogspot and Wordpress? Both of these services use ad serving on their sites, so all of these bloggers are potential targets. There is a wide range of speculation and questions to be answered here.
I’m sure this is only the beginning. Once the other states and law makers get wind of Philadelphia cashing in on bloggers, it will spread across the country like wildfire.
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