US City Charges its Bloggers for Business Privilege License

In Philadelphia Pennsylvania, the city government has asked its bloggers who run adverts on their blogs (thus turning it from hobby to business) to pay for a ‘business privilege license’ consisting of a one-time fee of $300 or $50 a year.

Alerting Philadelphians to the news in a recently-published article, Philadelphia City Paper writer Valerie Rubinsky wrote: “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.”

The story has quickly taken off; with headlines appearing all over the USA, including yesterday’s New York Daily News’ article entitled “Cash-strapped Philly: Bloggers must pay for business license”, which, according to Washington Post’s Rob Pegoraro, put a somewhat inaccurate spin on the story.

But, as Pegoraro, with tounge firmly planted in cheek observes;

“Kidding aside, there are real policy issues here. The city government put itself into this box with a law requiring anybody running a business of any sort to pay for this license, so bloggers running ads next to their copy shouldn’t be exempt if the requirement also applies to people selling old junk on eBay, collecting an ad-revenue share from funny cat videos posted on YouTube or hawking custom t-shirts at CafePress…”

And he’s right; most blogs provide minimal income at best. In light of that, isn’t Philadelphia’s reaction over-the-top?