In a stroke of brilliance, the city of Philadelphia, PA is considering making bloggers play $300 a year for a business privilege license in order to blog with an ad on their site. The art form once called “journaling,” is now being conceived as a potential to make money.
And I thought only the sports fans were maniacal.
How I Would Handle Blogging in Philadelphia
1) Incorporate – one of the recommended ways to protect yourself from liability is to incorporate yourself. So instead of being a blogger, you become an affiliate marketer who uses a blog for thought leadership. And if they actually think to write language to incorporate affiliate links.
2) Pay the taxes just to spite them – If you make peanuts a year, the state has to spend more on the paperwork – per blogger – to refund your taxes than it would cost them to to collect it. There’s a reason why nontaxable gifts are up to $1,000 a year. Not only that, but now you’re at poverty level. And if you do it right, you can apply for welfare. Now the city has to pay more just to deal with you. And you get government cheese.
Married bloggers: file jointly to make this works!
3) Collect receipts – Might as well get tax writee-offs for internet service, phone…keep this up and you could end up saving more than what you could have done if you didn’t incorporate and pay the tax.
And if this fight continues…
4) Start protest tweetups – bloggers have shown their power to make change. Start organizing and getting the word out. Once all those politicians Google Rankings are flooded with their decision to tax bloggers who make less a year than
And if you’re still having to pay $300 a year to maintain your 1st amendment rights
5) Leave Philadelphia – When the city gets that stupid and near-sighted, it’s time to leave the city. I know, easier said than done, but any city that’s going to try to loophole artistic expression is desperate. Treating bloggers in this fashion automatically shuts the door on the possibility that more tech companies will consider to start shop in Rocky’s town.
There are reasons why cities like Austin and Indianapolis are continuing to grow while cities like Detroit and, potentially, Philadelphia are fading. Adapt to change and survive. Try to control change and you suffer these fates.
Maybe for an encore they’ll start taxing everybody who wants to see the Liberty Bell.