Conservative lawmakers want taxes on porn. Critics say they are unconstitutional

Like age verification laws continue to dismantle the adult industry – and determine the the future of free speech on the Internet-a Utah lawmaker proposed a bill this week that would impose a tax on porn sites that operate within the state.

Introduced by State Senator Calvin Musselman, a Republican, the invoice would impose a 7 percent tax on total revenue “from sales, distributions, memberships, subscriptions, performances, and content constituting material harmful to minors that is produced, sold, filmed, generated, or otherwise based” in Utah. If passed, the bill would take effect in May and also require adult sites to pay an annual $500 tax to the State Tax Commission. Under the legislation, money generated from the tax will be used by the Utah Department of Health and Human Services to provide more mental health supports to adolescents.

Musselman did not respond to a request for comment.

A new era of American conservatism is dominating the political arena, and more U.S. lawmakers are calling for additional restrictions on adult content. In September, Alabama became the first state to impose a pornography tax on adult entertainment companies (10%), following the passage age verification mandates, which require users to upload identification or other personal documents to verify that they are not minors before viewing sexually explicit content. Pennsylvania lawmakers are also considering a bill that would tax consumers an additional 10% on “subscriptions and one-time purchases on online adult content platforms,” ​​although they already require them to pay a 6% sales and use tax for the purchase of digital productswrote two state senators in a note in October. Other states have already flirted with the idea of ​​a pornography tax. In 2019, Republican Arizona State Senator Gail Griffin proposed taxing distributors of adult content to help fund the border walla key priority of Donald Trump’s first presidential term. So far, 25 U.S. states have adopted some form of age verification.

Although efforts to criminalize participants in the sex work industry have continued for years — with new regulations put in place at a time of increased online surveillance and censorship — targeted taxes have failed to gain broad approval because the legality of these laws is open to debate.

“This type of tax on pornography is blatantly unconstitutional,” says Evelyn Douek, an associate professor of law at Stanford Law School. “It designates a particular type of protected speech and treats it disfavored, simply because the legislature doesn’t like it – which is exactly what the First Amendment is designed to protect against. Maybe Utah doesn’t like porn, but like the Supreme Court asserted just last year, adults had a fully protected right to access it.

Utah, Alabama and Pennsylvania are among the 16 states who passed resolutions declaring pornography a public health crisis. “We realize this is a bold claim that not everyone will agree with, but it is the full truth,” Utah Gov. Gary Herbert said. tweeted in 2016 after signing the resolution. One of the state of Utah’s first responses to the proliferation of adult content occurred in 2001, when it became the first state to create an office for sexually explicit matters by hiring an ombudsman for obscenity and pornography complaints. The post, nicknamed the “the porn czar”-was finished in 2017.

“Age restriction is a very complex topic that leads to data privacy issues and the potential for uneven and inconsistent enforcement across different digital platforms,” Alex Kekesi, vice president of brand and community at Pornhub, told WIRED in a previous conversation. In November, the company urged Google, Microsoft and Apple to adopt device-based verification in their application stores and on their operating systems. “We have seen several states and countries attempt to impose age verification requirements at the platform level, but they have not all succeeded in adequately protecting children. » To comply with new age barrier mandates, Pornhub has currently blocked access to users in 23 states.