Tag: Michael Nutter

PHILLY LAP DANCE TAX – IT’S FOR THE CHILDREN

Now he’ll need $21.

If Detroit only had a brilliant mayor like Michael Nutter, they certainly wouldn’t be bankrupt. When the going gets rough and you’ve run out of money, create a new tax out of thin air. Nutter has already jacked up taxes on cigarettes and soda, which impact the poor the most. Now he wants to tax you for having a trollop sit on your lap. I bet Nutter will have 10,000 government union drones applying for the 50 lap dance enforcement specialist jobs that will be created. Maybe they can add a blowjob tax (an extra 5% if they swallow), a handjob tax, an anal tax, and a premature ejaculation tax. Nutter is cumming for your money. If you need any more proof of a city in a downward spiral, this is it. Do it for the chilrun.

This guy should get a tax refund.

Lap dance in West Philly

Lap dances to be taxed to help Philadelphia school  revenues

Date 

Romy Varghese

A man in a strip club

A man in a strip club Photo: Michael Rayner

Philadelphia: It’s one thing to watch a scantily clad woman  twirl around poles. It’s another, says Philadelphia, to pay her to undulate over  your lap.

That’s the stance being taken with at least two strip clubs, Club Risque and  Cheerleaders: The city, which taxes the establishments’ entrance fees, is trying  to collect levies on lap dances as well.

It’s unclear how much the city would reap from collecting lap-dance levies  from every club, of which there are dozens.

The city is pressing its case as it hires a revenue collection officer and  goes after delinquent property tax, which is fifth highest among US cities  surveyed last month by Pew Charitable Trusts. Mayor Michael Nutter has pledged  an extra $US28 million from improved collections to the school district, which  has a $US304 million deficit.

“It’s smart business” to apply the tax code to erotic dancing, said Michael  Gillen, director of the tax accounting group at Duane Morris LLP in  Philadelphia. “They have to be foolish not to expand their reach.”

New York and other cities also are trying to collect more revenue as they  recover from the worst recession since the Great Depression and they are looking  in innovative places.

The adult-entertainment industry has waged and lost several taxation battles.  New York in October rejected a bid by the strip club Nite Moves to get a break  on the grounds that it provided musical art performances. The Texas Supreme  Court three years ago upheld a per-customer tax in nude businesses that serve  alcohol.

At issue in Philadelphia is a 5 percent tax that applies to any amusement in  the city, including concerts, movies and strip- club entry fees. The city  collected $US21.9 million in those taxes in the fiscal year that ended in July  2012, documents show.

Now the city says lap dances are distinct amusements and should be taxed,  according to George Bochetto, a Philadelphia lawyer challenging the city’s tax  assessment on behalf of the two clubs.

Philadelphia sent a $US486,483 bill covering lap dances performed at  Cheerleaders and charged Club Risque $US320,540, according to documents provided  by Mr Bochetto. The city is seeking principal, interest and penalties over three  years.

It’s unclear how much the city would reap from collecting lap-dance levies  from every club, of which there are dozens.

At Club Risque, which is advertising a Christmas in July party next week  featuring “naughty elves,” lap dances start at $US20 and can cost $US200 in a  semi-private area. The club already pays the amusement tax on entry fees as high  as $US15, depending on the day and time, according to the documents.

Mr Bochetto says the city’s approach is unfair, arguing that a personal  performance doesn’t constitute a separate amusement.

Mr Bochetto said he will press his clients’ appeal in front of a city tax  board next week and said he’ll go to court if needed. In papers filed with the  city, he said dancers pay their own taxes and provide their own costumes and  props. In exchange for security, the performers give the businesses a percentage  of their earnings at the end of each shift.

“The city started saying, ‘OK, we need more money, and here, maybe, is a way  we can scare up some more money without having to raise anybody’s taxes,’ ” Mr  Bochetto said.

Mark McDonald, a spokesman for Mr Nutter, declined to comment on how many  strip clubs the city is trying to tax for lap dances or on the bills for  Cheerleaders and Club Risque.

The city and school district are owed $US515.4 million in delinquent taxes  and penalties, according to a report last month from the Pew Charitable Trusts,  a Philadelphia-based research and public policy group. Pew surveyed the nation’s  most populous metropolitan areas and six others that, like Philadelphia, have  poverty rates of more than 25 percent.

Outside, John Adams, 33, of Philadelphia, a former manager at another strip  club in the city, said applying the fees is a “horrible” idea.

“It’s going to be impossible to regulate,” Mr Adams said, adding that prices  can vary widely. “Sometimes it’s negotiated. Sometimes a woman just sits on your  lap.”

 

HOW TO GET RICH IN PHILADELPHIA

Michael Nutter, the mayor of Philadelphia, signed a tough new anti-gun law in 2008. He severely restricted a citizen’s ability to buy a gun. It seems he now has a bit of a problem. Philadelphia is averaging a murder per day so far in 2012. People are getting gunned down like it’s a PS3 game. So he’s got a brilliant solution. Philadelphia is offering $20,000 to anyone who turns in a murderer. What an opportunity. Driving through West Philly every day gives me ample opportunity to generate some extra cash. At the current rate of murders, I’m bound to witness two or three in the next year. Sounds like easy money.

These are the solutions that come from Democratic politicians that have ruined every urban area in the country. Let’s assess the brilliance of the Democratic rule of Philadelphia since 1950. You start to dish out entitlements to the poor voters, like welfare and low income housing. You raise taxes on the workers and the businesses to pay for the entitlements. The workers and businesses leave the city for the suburbs, leaving only the poor people. You double the entitlements so you can continue to get their votes. You raise taxes even more on the productive people. More productive people flea the city. All that remain are the poor, ignorant and criminal. As the pie continues to shrink, the scum start killing each other. What’s left of the good people scramble to get out of the city before it’s too late. You ban the sale of hand guns to law abiding citizens so that only the criminals are armed. You now have chaos and wholesale slaughter on a daily basis. Nutter’s solution will be to hire more police and throw more money at the “problem”. The next Phila budget will require more taxes to pay for his new solution. Do you think it’ll work?

Here is a chart showing gun sales in the U.S. since 2002. Do you see a trend?   

This chart is from the FBI. Do you see a trend?

This figure is a line graph that presents trends in the estimated number of violent crimes for the Nation from 2006 through 2010. In 2006, there were 1,435,123 violent crimes. In 2007, there were 1,422,970 violent crimes. In 2008, there were 1,394,461 violent crimes. In 2009, there were 1,325,896 violent crimes. In 2010, there were 1,246,248 violent crimes. The figure is based on statistics from Table 1.

Criminals tend to think twice if they believe the person they are about to commit a crime against happens to be holding a gun. When will do-gooder liberal Democratic douchebags ever get it? An armed citizenry is the best deterrent to crime. Nutter is a Nut. His $20,000 bounty will result in more murders. Anyone turning in someone for murder will likely become the next victim in Killadelphia.

Nutter plans $20,000 bounty for tips leading to slaying arrests

BY DAVID GAMBACORTA
Philadelphia Daily News

THE NUMBERS tell you that the city is back to where it was four and five years ago, back to a murder or two a day and an incomprehensible number of shootings.

Faced with that grim reality, Mayor Nutter yesterday announced at a news conference at Strawberry Mansion High School that the city is, in so many words, now throwing the kitchen sink at its crime problems.

There was no clever, catchall nickname for the assortment of initiatives, just a clear sense that city leaders are ready to try anything to escape being forever known as “Killadelphia.”

One initiative that Nutter said he hopes will be a “major game-changer” simply involves cash: $20,000 for tips that lead to the arrest and conviction of a murder suspect, and $500 for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of thugs who carry or sell illegal guns.

“To every criminal out there, I just put a $20,000 bounty on your head,” Nutter said. “We are coming for you. We will find you. People will give up that information.”

The mayor said he had set aside $500,000 in the city’s budget to fund the reward program.

He discussed other plans:

* Doubling the city’s contribution to the district attorney’s witness-assistance program to $400,000 – an announcement that called to mind the cold-blooded murder earlier this week of North Philly store clerk Rosemary Fernandez Rivera, who had given police information about another slaying.

* Boosting the Police Department’s overtime budget – perhaps by a few million dollars, according to Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey – so that cops can work extra hours in the city’s most violent neighborhoods.

* Hiring 100 police recruits for a class that would start training at the Police Academy in June, coming on the heels of the 120 recruits scheduled to graduate from the academy in March.

* Establishing a program that would enable residents to text anonymous tips and crime photos to police.

* Expanding a Commerce Department corridor-improvement program to put surveillance cameras in residential neighborhoods and other public spaces.

And that wasn’t all.

Nutter noted that although the Pennsylvania Crime Code calls for people caught carrying illegal weapons to get up to seven years in jail, many offenders in the city often get off with a slap on the wrist – a couple of months in the slammer and a little probation.

He and D.A. Seth Williams said they want to make sure the stiffest penalties are being enforced by the courts, but were vague on how that might happen.

Nutter said the city also would establish a Gun Stat program that would bring together cops, prosecutors, prisons, and probation and parole officials to focus on closely tracking those who commit gun crimes.

Temple University criminologist Jerry Ratcliffe, who has helped the Police Department develop crime-fighting strategies, said “the more-specific, focused strategies have the best chance of succeeding. . . . It’s a good chance to try something new.”