I'm sure the rotten City of Philadelphia will be shaking down little kids' lemonade stands next. It's reported today (link to full story at bottom) that the city is sending nasty letters to bloggers demanding that they buck up $300 for a business license, not to mention that they also pay wage taxes, business privilege taxes and net profits taxes.The most outrageous thing about this sort of overbearing, government-gone-wild behavior is that the city is apparently trying to bully anyone who made as much as one red cent from a blog. For example, the linked story has the account of one dude who made a paltry $11 over two years from his blog, but is now being asked to pay the $300 plus the various taxes.
The real scary thought is that with the current economy and all of the highly cash-strapped American cities out there at the moment, how long will it be until we see other cities following Philadelphia's lead? I'd give it about a week, at most.
But there may be a solution, at least for people starting up new blogs or having relatively new ones. That would be to do what I do: No ads and no income whatsoever. I just do this to express myself and to have fun (as usual), and not to try to make the tiny amounts of money that most blogs bring in. And by doing so, how in the hell is any city going to demand that I pay for a business license? What freakin' business, after all? Kiss my a$$, overbearing cities!
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/philly-requiring-bloggers-to-pay-300-for-a-business-license-101264664.html
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