Every Jerk You Take

You're soaking in it.We’ve been amused for years by the tax-avoidance schemes of the wealthy, which largely consist of creative ways to tax the poor. A straightforward graduated income tax would work wonders, but of course that would have the same effect as consolidating credit-card debt: scaring the shit out of you.

So instead we scatter taxes all over the place, pretending it doesn’t all come from the same wallets anyway, especially the thinnest.

And with state budgets bleeding red in the billions, state lawmakers are discovering a new untapped revenue stream, just around the curve from those wallets.

Ladies and gentlemen — well, gentlemen, mostly — welcome to the Porn Tax.

Politicians in California, Washington state, and New York have proposed variations on the theme, from a general tax on “digitally delivered entertainment services” (the “iPod tax”), to a stiff 25 percent markup on products and services “primarily oriented to an interest in sex”.

Which would include nearly every consumer product in America, near as we can reckon, but we’ll leave that to the regulators.

Opponents aren’t going down without a fight, however. The most novel argument against a porn tax comes from NY Conservative Party Chairman Michael “We’re not making this up” Long, who fears a poon penalty would “legitimize” smut:

“You’re sending a message to children, and you’re sending a message to teenagers: If you’re taxing it, how can it be wrong? I don’t know how you can sink much deeper.”

We do, but it requires age-verification.

Yet for all the fantasizing about skimming a few shakes off the jerk, we fear such plans will shoot a blank: After all, if you pay for porn, you’re not looking hard enough.

Criticism Escalates for N.Y. Porn Tax Proposal [XBIZ Newswire]

Image: Plastic Foliage

17 Comments

They haven’t been so bold to tax porn itself down here, but our legislators, during breaks between criticizing state universities for teaching about male prostitution and blowjobs, are taking a shine to the pole tax in the form of a per-entry fee for strip clubs. (Yes, they exist here despite the rabid Jeebusy masses.)

I’d much rather think about taxing drunken businessmen who’ve stumbled from the airport than I would ordinary folks who just need relief from the stresses of living in Southeast Fucktardistan. I think it should only be levied for out-of-state businessmen and state legislators who bloviate about family values until they get to evil, liberal Atlanta and go motorboat some titties or hook up on the M4M section of Craigslist.

If porn went “legit” ie taxed then a lot of wingnuts that would mean that certain varieties of porn would lose their appeal except for kiddie porn.

Taxing porn is silly. I have a better idea – since the fundies are largely to blame for the last 8 years, howz about a tax on those idiots? Every member of a megachurch should be dragged kicking and screaming from their pew and relieved of their cash (before the pastor takes it). I will volunteer to work on one of the beatdown teams.

And I’ve said it over and over – I am all in favor of billing two-time Bush voters for the mess they caused. Anyone could have predicted this outcome based on Bush’s biography.

This tax is pretty evenly distributed, actually – iPod tax for the liberal elite, and a porn tax for the Christian Right leaders who buy their porn in bulk.

And with 85 percent of IP addresses to a certain male porn site coming out of Vatican City, this might be the end of the Catholic Church as well.

@RomeGirl:
Seriously? There is a lot going under those robes that I don’t want to know about.

@RomeGirl: Like James Dobson said – he buys that porn for “research”.

If only we could tax stupidity. It would solve all our problems.

Oregon is considering raising the tax on beer from less than 1 cent to 15 cents (it hasn’t been raised since the ’70s).

it pisses me off no end that the houses of worship, which i can barely say with a straight face, get off tax free. in a country that has clearly no actual separation of church and state. why? why? why?
just the porn going on in the catholic church would bring a windfall.

@baked: You complain about this, from Isreal? I mean, such as. Also.

@Prommie: They should have a tax on payess (long sideburn things) in Israel so the ultra-orthodox could carry their weight, for once.

@Prommie:
i am still a usamerican, such as.
israel does not pretend there is a separation of synogogue and state.

@Dodgerblue:
great idea. they creep me out, the hassidem.
they are israel’s equivalent to the fundies.

@Mistress Cynica: saw that on teevee during my visit. Don’t tax what I use to drown my sorrows any further.

Coincidentally, I thought for the longest time that George Harrison sang “and when I die, they’ll tax the panties on my eye” in Taxman.

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