Hmmm, perhaps.
Alabama Proposes Whopping 40% 'Porn Tax' to Help Fund Essential Services
- Thread starter Angel4Truth
- Start date
Hmmm, perhaps.
I'm not a big fan of 'sin taxes'. I don't like the conflict of interest it creates by having the state profiting from something they say they want to limit. Beyond that, it seems backwards to fund important services with money from a supply that you, ideally, would have decreased. What happens to the 'essential services' that Alabama is funding with this new tax when/if porn use goes down and the money well starts to dry up?
One thing that I think could make sense, which I think rex has said before on TOL, is if you use the sin tax funds to directly combat the 'sin' you're taxing. So for instance, cigarette taxes go to fund awareness about the dangers of smoking or health care related to smoking, etc. But that's not what 'Bama is proposing in this so I would not support this bill.
Also, this definition:
| And according to the bill "sexually oriented materials" would include "any book, magazine, newspaper, printed or written matter, writing, description, picture, drawing, animation, photograph, motion picture, film, video tape, pictorial presentation, depiction, image, electrical or electronic reproduction, broadcast, transmission, video download, telephone communication, sound recording, article, device, equipment, matter, oral communication, depicting breast or genital nudity or sexual conduct." |
....I think would have to be modified. It seems to be based solely on content instead of what the products created purpose is.
It would be hard to implement in some ways. In most cases it's pretty easy to know if something is porn. And this
| "[It] basically says that any entertainment product that's adult in nature, that you have to be over 18 to purchase, would have an excise tax like cigarettes and tobacco do," Williams told WIAT. |
Seems more workable. 'porn' is already being defined by the age limit, so why talk about whether or not something shows certain body parts?
I never look at that and think it is a moral infringement. There should be some access regulation.
Huckleberry
New member
I hate to show my age but I remember back in the day, when the internet was young, how the most innocent websearch and click would very, very often prove shocking. At least. If not outright traumatic. Porn sights would intentionally manipulate search engines to lead web surfers to their sites, no matter what you were actually looking for.
You have to admit it's gotten a lot better in that regard. I can't remember the last time something like that happened, even when Googling something that actually could lead you to porn it doesn't seem to happen anymore.
I do suspect that's more the result of porn purveyors realizing that if they kept tricking people to their sites (including youngsters) then the people were eventually going to lower the hammer of the law on them, but hard. Still, I'm pretty sure there isn't much in the way of regulation when fourteen year old kids are actually looking for the stuff. In that sense its regulation is long overdue.
Taxing it...well, that kind of leads to me ask, if you can tax it, why can't you regulate it?
genuineoriginal
New member
If states can independently impose an excise tax on cigarettes, then they can do the same with porn.
Telephone communication is probably the phone sex lines where people pay per minute.
Oral communication can be paid speakers, like comedians that tell sexual jokes.
It is probably an attempt to impose a tax on entertainers that rely on twerking as a major part of their act.
Quetzal
New member
This exactly. There are so many free sources for something like this I do not think it would generate very much revenue. Nice idea in theory, but lacks execution.
genuineoriginal
New member
The State of Alabama is not the Federal congress.
Well, you have no point there at all.