That $11....

[Lewkowski]

http://money.cnn.com/2010/08/24/tech..._tax/index.htm

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Philadelphia bloggers were abuzz this week about a citywide move to crack down on citizens running a business without a license -- which includes any local bloggers running ads on their sites.

The weekly Philadelphia City Paper kicked off the kerfuffle with an article spotlighting several small-scale bloggers who were startled to receive letters from the city demanding that they shell out up to $300 for a license allowing them to operate a local business. One of the recipients had raked in a whopping profit of $11 over two years from his blog.

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This is kinda old but I ran into it again. Gotta love government don't you?

[RandBlade]

Should be some form of minimum threshold ... unless there's more to the story and the blogger's been claiming back business expenses etc

[Aimless]

This is kinda old but I ran into it again. Gotta love government don't you?

It was a result of adhering to the letter of the law. It was resolved by a change to the law making allowances for "hobby" activities. We have welcomed Philadelphia into the modern world and hope to see you catch up in the near future.

[Aimless]

Should be some form of minimum threshold ... unless there's more to the story and the blogger's been claiming back business expenses etc

There wasn't very much more to the story than that Philly residents who engaged in commercial activity through their blog--eg. through sales, google adsense, amazon referrals--were required to abide by the same rules as other Philly residents engaging in commercial activity. The law was summat behind the times but was adjusted to allow for the sort of hobby-level activity blogging usually represents so as to spare people who really weren't making much money from their blogging.

[RandBlade]

There wasn't very much more to the story than that Philly residents who engaged in commercial activity through their blog--eg. through sales, google adsense, amazon referrals--were required to abide by the same rules as other Philly residents engaging in commercial activity. The law was summat behind the times but was adjusted to allow for the sort of hobby-level activity blogging usually represents so as to spare people who really weren't making much money from their blogging.

All Philly residents should be based upon a threshold - that's not a modern notion for Google only we've always had small hobbiests or arrangements that the government need not bother itself with.

If I theoretically cut my neighbour's grass while I'm doing my own and he gives me a fiver am I breaking the law? What about my soon-to-be sister-in-law who genuinely has an arrangement for a dozen baked cookies a month in exchange for her neighbour cutting their grass - he even gives an "invoice" for the cookies, kind of cute - what's the tax on a dozen cookies a month? Any reasonable threshold law would say no. What about when I was little and my neighbour's daughter was our babysitter - was she running a business?

[Dreadnaught]

This seemed familiar until I saw this was from 2010.

Arguably, a local business incorporation fee should probably only occur if you're operating out of a commercially-zoned physical location. But this is Philly, the land of gang bloodshed and stupid taxes, so whaddya gonna do.