Philadelphia was once a beacon of freedom and independence. Home of the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall, Philadelphia was the of the Constitutional Convention took place in Philadelphia, and it is considered by many to be the original capital of the United States.

It’s difficult to look at Philadelphia as that beacon of freedom when you consider the big government bureaucrats looking to squeeze every dollar out of the city’s residents that they can. The newest scheme? Philadelphia wants to charge bloggers $300, regardless of whether or not they make a profit. Get that? Even if you make no money, you still have to pay up.

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.

… When Bess pressed her case to officials with the city’s now-closed tax amnesty program, she says, “I was told to hire an accountant.”

She’s not alone. 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.

Even if, as with Sean Barry, that profit is $11 over two years.

… Even though small-time bloggers aren’t exactly raking in the dough, the city requires privilege licenses for any business engaged in any “activity for profit,” says tax attorney Michael Mandale of Center City law firm Mandale Kaufmann. This applies “whether or not they earned a profit during the preceding year,” he adds.

So even if your blog collects a handful of hits a day, as long as there’s the potential for it to be lucrative — and, as Mandale points out, most hosting sites set aside space for bloggers to sell advertising — the city thinks you should cut it a check. 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.

These despicable bureaucrats would have fined Thomas Payne for distributing Common Sense.

Let’s get realistic here. Most bloggers, even if they have ads on their site, make very little money. You can get plenty of hits, but making money as a blogger — to where you can actually support yourself — is difficult. If this is the route that Philly bureaucrats want to go, then they might as well start requiring kids operating lemonade stands to get business licenses too. Why not? Why stop at blogging? There’s a lot of good money to be made by squeezing every penny out of Philly residents.

Even worse, this is a gross infringement on freedom of speech. Philadelphia residents who simply want to publicly express their opinion on anything — whether it be politics, gardening, sports, music, anything — will be punished. There’s no excuse for this, beyond gross government overreach as usual. City of Brotherly Love? Doesn’t sound like it to me.