Philly To Make Bloggers Pay Tax

From the Philadelphia City Paper: For the past three years, Marilyn Bess has operated MS Philly Organic, a small, low-traffic blog that features occasional posts about green living, out of her Manayunk home. Between her blog and infrequent contributions to ehow.com, over the last few years she says she's made about $50. To Bess, her website is a hobby. To the city of Philadelphia, it's a potential moneymaker, and the city wants its cut.
In May, the city sent Bess a letter demanding that she pay $300, the price of a business privilege license.
"The real kick in the pants is that I don't even have a full-time job, so for the city to tell me to pony up $300 for a business privilege license, pay wage tax, business privilege tax, net profits tax on a handful of money is outrageous," Bess says....
...According to Andrea Mannino of the Philadelphia Department of Revenue, in fact, simply choosing the option to make money from ads — regardless of how much or little money is actually generated — qualifies a blog as a business. The same rules apply to freelance writers. As former City Paper news editor Doron Taussig once lamented [Slant, "Taxed Out," April 28, 2005], the city considers freelancers — which both Bess and Barry are, in addition to their blog work — "businesses," and requires them to pay for a license and pay taxes on their profits, on top of their state and federal taxes.
http://citypaper.net/articles/2010/08/19/blogging-business-privilege-tax-philadelphia
So, Philly thinks it is ok to go after bloggers. Most bloggers make very little if any money, however, using the Philly way of thinking, what or who else can they tax, using their rationale?
Start with the homeless and poor people who go out and collect bottles and copper.
How about kids with lemonade stands.
How about politicians who do business at their homes.
How about the house wife who sells tupper ware or Mary Kay.
How about the home of a Girl Scout who sells cookies from their house.
How about the house wife or husband who clips coupons.
What about the little boy or girl who collects baseball cards and sells one.
This law in Philly and they way it is being applied is outrageous and if it succeeds there, watch out the in the rest of the country. What is to stop the federal government from making bloggers register and make them pay a fee. What is to stop a state government from doing the same? Probably, not much.
But then, what do you expect from a city where people boo Santa Claus?

h/t Real Debate Wisconsin http://realdebatewisconsin.blogspot.com/