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EDIT: Perhaps I was unclear in my comment below. I am by no means endorsing this law. I think it is unreasonable and I do not agree with it. However, that is a

EDIT: Perhaps I was unclear in my comment below. I am by no means endorsing this law. I think it is unreasonable and I do not agree with it. However, that is a separate issue than the question of whether or not the law applies to bloggers trying to make money from their blog, given that the law was already in place. /EDIT When I first started reading this, I was outraged. "This is a violation of free speach!" I thought, acknowledging that such a law restricts public writing and blogs to those who can afford it. Then, halfway through the article, it finally clarifies the city's stance with this: [...] the city requires privilege licenses for any business engaged in any "activity for profit," [...] So even if your blog collects a handful of hits a day, as long as there's the potential for it to be lucrative — and, as Mandale points out, most hosting sites set aside space for bloggers to sell advertising — the city thinks you should cut it a check. So, the city requires a business license fee from anyone setting up shop to make money. And by putting ads on your blog, that's exactly what you're doing. This seems reasonable to me. To the Philidelphia bloggers complaining that they have to pay a $300 licensing fee even though they only make $5-$20 per year from ads, I have some advice: remove the ads. It's not worth it. In fact, why would you undermine your blog's credibility [1] for a few measely dollars in the first place? [1] See item 9 on http://credibility.stanford.edu/guidelines/index.html http://credibility.stanford.edu/guidelines/index.html

cjy 16y ago
Just because the law applies equally to everyone, doesn't make it a reasonable law. It's dumb to charge every entity that brings in revenue a $300 license fee. From the sounds of it, this law applies to every kid who shovels snow or mows a couple of lawns in the summer. How about if you have a yard sale or sell your motorcycle through the classifieds? When does a person become a business? What this law ends up doing is encouraging people to lie about any minor sources of income they receive. Activities that are done primarily for pleasure should not be treated like businesses in the tax code. That's just unreasonable.
- JangoSteve 16y ago
  I think you misinterpreted my comment. I am in no way endorsing or agreeing with such a law. I agree with you, it is unreasonable. However, that is a separate question from the one this article addresses, which is that, assuming this law does indeed exist, does it apply to bloggers who attempt to make money from their blog? Now I haven't read the law itself, so who knows. But if it exists, then it sounds to me like it does in fact apply to them. Likewise, if a person in Philidelphia sets up a consulting business, I'm sure they are required to pay this fee as well, even if they take a loss the first year, in which case they would have made even less than these bloggers.
- jamesbritt 16y ago
  "What this law ends up doing is encouraging people to lie about any minor sources of income they receive" Which, in turn, makes them that much more cynical about the law and legality. If you go about making everyone a criminal then pretty soon the notion of criminals being the Bad Guys starts to fade. Good way to undermine the rule of law.
  - billswift 16y ago
    Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent http://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594032556/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1282467538&sr=8-4 http://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/...
- allwein 16y ago
  The township I used to live in charged $20 for yard sale permits. And yes, it was enforced. The cops used to drive around every Saturday morning during the summer and issue $50 fines for anyone running an unlicensed yard sale.
btmorex 16y ago
It's weird that your solution is to not make any money at all. Isn't the correct solution pretty easy to implement too? Just make the licensing fee apply only after you've met minimum revenue requirements (like $10000 or something).
- JangoSteve 16y ago
  That is by no means my solution. I agree that this law is unreasonable. However, if the law exists, then it sounds like it does apply to bloggers just as it applies to anyone else trying to start a business in Philidelphia (in this case, by start a business, I mean try to make money). Note however, that the people in this article did not disagree with the law and set out to protest it. They merely had no idea that they had to pay Philidelphia's licensing fee for making money before they tried to make money. And unfortunately for them, ignorance of the law does not beget exemption.
  - billswift 16y ago
    Repeating an old comment of mine from Marginal Revolution: I forgot to mention that excessive regulation also makes it impossible to be sure you have satisfied them, as someone else pointed out in respect to the number of laws on the books, "`Ignorance of the law is no excuse' is a sick joke", because it is literally impossible to be informed of all possible legal/regulationary requirements. Does any one remember the problems Clinton had finding a Federal judge who hadn't accidentally broken the law about withholding taxes for child care workers. Posted by: billswift at Feb 5, 2007 11:44:38 AM
    - anamax 16y ago
      > Does any one remember the problems Clinton had finding a Federal judge who hadn't accidentally broken the law about withholding taxes for child care workers. That's a bad example as that law is well documented in the tax returns. My parents knew about that tax and paid it. However, it remind them that the ruling class thinks that taxes are for the little people.
- jakewalker 16y ago
duck 16y ago
I think my advise would be not to report it. With that rule my kid's lemonade stand would be require to pay $300.
- JangoSteve 16y ago
  Many states do not require you to report income of less than $X on your taxes, where $X is around $500 or so. This article made it sound like that is not the case for Pennsylvania, but maybe we're missing some information here.
credo 16y ago
regarding your suggestion .....how is a blogger going to know whether his new blog is going to net $10/year or $1000/year without turning on ads and therefore paying the $300 fee ? Here in Washington state, businesses are required to pay 1.5% Business tax. However, if the business earns less than $28,000, the govt does not collect any taxes. I think a sole proprietorship business license (for a real business, not a blog) costs $15. imo charging $300 for a license to run a blog with ads is high. Not exempting low-revenue blogs from the $300 fee is also absurd.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- JangoSteve 16y ago
  Likewise, how is a restauranteur going to know whether their new restaurant will make $50k its first year, or take a $100k loss, before building the restaurant and paying the $300 fee? I'll go ahead and answer both questions. Just as an entrepreneur can create a business plan and analyze the market, a blogger can do the same. Except with a blogger, it's much easier; if your blog only gets a few hundred visits a day, you know you're in the $10/year range without having to turn on ads or pay the licensing fee. Not exempting low-revenue blogs from the $300 fee is also absurd. I agree.
  - chmike 16y ago
    I guess the 300$ is to be considered part of the investment. It won't make a big difference to the 100K$ investment. It looks like the law didn't consider very low revenues and hobby activity like blogging.
  - skinnymuch 16y ago
    Did you mean to say a few hundred visits a year? If you did or you just meant something else...then I'm sorry for the rest of my post. A few hundred visits a day is respectable. Though not easy or common, it is possible to do $10+/day with a few hundred visits/day. Quick math: let's assume few hundred = 300 visits/day. Also have to assume the blog is self hosted so all revenue is kept in-house (unlike the bloggers in the article). So 300 visits x 5 page views = 1500 pageviews/day. That equals $7 CPM and a bit over $10/day or ~$3,750/year. Not messing with revenue from the feed or anything since this is just hypothetical numbers anyway. The change above the $10 will be enough to pay for hosting + domain costs. Alternatively, if you meant a few hundred views/day then dividing $3,750 by 5 still yields $750. Ah...I'm rambling and I doubt anyone cares too much so I'll stop. Regarding the actual post, I don't agree with the fee either. This reminds me of a homeless SF guy trying to get back on his feet by shining shoes - SF came up to him and demanded he get a license and some other stuff too. Thankfully there was a small uproar and the city didn't end up screwing him over.
cookiecaper 16y ago
Cities charge fees for business licenses because traditional businesses require and tax city resources. They create traffic, they create additional overhead on utilities, sewers, and other municipal things. A blog, however, does none of these things. It requires nothing Philadelphia-specific. You would have the same municipal overhead whether someone runs a blog or not. It's not reasonable to tax anything that can potentially bring in money as a business. Do I have to get such a license to sell something on eBay or run a garage sale? What if I sell something on craigslist? It would make more sense to charge for any of these because they have more impact on municipal services than just running a blog because I at least have to transport the goods. A blog just requires a visit to a web page. This is obviously a move of desperation on a group that Philly still believes can be marginalized without disruptive public outcry. If you told the people they couldn't have a garage sale without buying a $300 license from the city, they would freak out. Since blogging is still unfamiliar to most, Philly assumes they can take money for that without stirring up a ruckus. Someone should prove them wrong.

cjy 16y ago

Just because the law applies equally to everyone, doesn't make it a reasonable law. It's dumb to charge every entity that brings in revenue a $300 license fee. From the sounds of it, this law applies to every kid who shovels snow or mows a couple of lawns in the summer. How about if you have a yard sale or sell your motorcycle through the classifieds? When does a person become a business? What this law ends up doing is encouraging people to lie about any minor sources of income they receive. Activities that are done primarily for pleasure should not be treated like businesses in the tax code. That's just unreasonable.

JangoSteve 16y ago
I think you misinterpreted my comment. I am in no way endorsing or agreeing with such a law. I agree with you, it is unreasonable. However, that is a separate question from the one this article addresses, which is that, assuming this law does indeed exist, does it apply to bloggers who attempt to make money from their blog? Now I haven't read the law itself, so who knows. But if it exists, then it sounds to me like it does in fact apply to them. Likewise, if a person in Philidelphia sets up a consulting business, I'm sure they are required to pay this fee as well, even if they take a loss the first year, in which case they would have made even less than these bloggers.
jamesbritt 16y ago
"What this law ends up doing is encouraging people to lie about any minor sources of income they receive" Which, in turn, makes them that much more cynical about the law and legality. If you go about making everyone a criminal then pretty soon the notion of criminals being the Bad Guys starts to fade. Good way to undermine the rule of law.
- billswift 16y ago
  Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent http://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594032556/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1282467538&sr=8-4 http://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/...
allwein 16y ago
The township I used to live in charged $20 for yard sale permits. And yes, it was enforced. The cops used to drive around every Saturday morning during the summer and issue $50 fines for anyone running an unlicensed yard sale.

btmorex 16y ago

It's weird that your solution is to not make any money at all. Isn't the correct solution pretty easy to implement too? Just make the licensing fee apply only after you've met minimum revenue requirements (like $10000 or something).

JangoSteve 16y ago
That is by no means my solution. I agree that this law is unreasonable. However, if the law exists, then it sounds like it does apply to bloggers just as it applies to anyone else trying to start a business in Philidelphia (in this case, by start a business, I mean try to make money). Note however, that the people in this article did not disagree with the law and set out to protest it. They merely had no idea that they had to pay Philidelphia's licensing fee for making money before they tried to make money. And unfortunately for them, ignorance of the law does not beget exemption.
- billswift 16y ago
  Repeating an old comment of mine from Marginal Revolution: I forgot to mention that excessive regulation also makes it impossible to be sure you have satisfied them, as someone else pointed out in respect to the number of laws on the books, "`Ignorance of the law is no excuse' is a sick joke", because it is literally impossible to be informed of all possible legal/regulationary requirements. Does any one remember the problems Clinton had finding a Federal judge who hadn't accidentally broken the law about withholding taxes for child care workers. Posted by: billswift at Feb 5, 2007 11:44:38 AM
  - anamax 16y ago
    > Does any one remember the problems Clinton had finding a Federal judge who hadn't accidentally broken the law about withholding taxes for child care workers. That's a bad example as that law is well documented in the tax returns. My parents knew about that tax and paid it. However, it remind them that the ruling class thinks that taxes are for the little people.
jakewalker 16y ago

duck 16y ago

I think my advise would be not to report it. With that rule my kid's lemonade stand would be require to pay $300.

JangoSteve 16y ago
Many states do not require you to report income of less than $X on your taxes, where $X is around $500 or so. This article made it sound like that is not the case for Pennsylvania, but maybe we're missing some information here.

credo 16y ago

regarding your suggestion .....how is a blogger going to know whether his new blog is going to net $10/year or $1000/year without turning on ads and therefore paying the $300 fee ? Here in Washington state, businesses are required to pay 1.5% Business tax. However, if the business earns less than $28,000, the govt does not collect any taxes. I think a sole proprietorship business license (for a real business, not a blog) costs $15. imo charging $300 for a license to run a blog with ads is high. Not exempting low-revenue blogs from the $300 fee is also absurd.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
JangoSteve 16y ago
Likewise, how is a restauranteur going to know whether their new restaurant will make $50k its first year, or take a $100k loss, before building the restaurant and paying the $300 fee? I'll go ahead and answer both questions. Just as an entrepreneur can create a business plan and analyze the market, a blogger can do the same. Except with a blogger, it's much easier; if your blog only gets a few hundred visits a day, you know you're in the $10/year range without having to turn on ads or pay the licensing fee. Not exempting low-revenue blogs from the $300 fee is also absurd. I agree.
- chmike 16y ago
  I guess the 300$ is to be considered part of the investment. It won't make a big difference to the 100K$ investment. It looks like the law didn't consider very low revenues and hobby activity like blogging.
- skinnymuch 16y ago
  Did you mean to say a few hundred visits a year? If you did or you just meant something else...then I'm sorry for the rest of my post. A few hundred visits a day is respectable. Though not easy or common, it is possible to do $10+/day with a few hundred visits/day. Quick math: let's assume few hundred = 300 visits/day. Also have to assume the blog is self hosted so all revenue is kept in-house (unlike the bloggers in the article). So 300 visits x 5 page views = 1500 pageviews/day. That equals $7 CPM and a bit over $10/day or ~$3,750/year. Not messing with revenue from the feed or anything since this is just hypothetical numbers anyway. The change above the $10 will be enough to pay for hosting + domain costs. Alternatively, if you meant a few hundred views/day then dividing $3,750 by 5 still yields $750. Ah...I'm rambling and I doubt anyone cares too much so I'll stop. Regarding the actual post, I don't agree with the fee either. This reminds me of a homeless SF guy trying to get back on his feet by shining shoes - SF came up to him and demanded he get a license and some other stuff too. Thankfully there was a small uproar and the city didn't end up screwing him over.

cookiecaper 16y ago

Cities charge fees for business licenses because traditional businesses require and tax city resources. They create traffic, they create additional overhead on utilities, sewers, and other municipal things. A blog, however, does none of these things. It requires nothing Philadelphia-specific. You would have the same municipal overhead whether someone runs a blog or not. It's not reasonable to tax anything that can potentially bring in money as a business. Do I have to get such a license to sell something on eBay or run a garage sale? What if I sell something on craigslist? It would make more sense to charge for any of these because they have more impact on municipal services than just running a blog because I at least have to transport the goods. A blog just requires a visit to a web page. This is obviously a move of desperation on a group that Philly still believes can be marginalized without disruptive public outcry. If you told the people they couldn't have a garage sale without buying a $300 license from the city, they would freak out. Since blogging is still unfamiliar to most, Philly assumes they can take money for that without stirring up a ruckus. Someone should prove them wrong.