GV News: Porn tax proposed to aid parole agency
COLUMBIA — The Senate Finance Committee adopted a proviso Wednesday to collect a 20 percent surcharge on porn magazines to help fund the monitoring of sexual offenders.
The proposal, by Greenville Republican Sen. Mike Fair, would generate an estimated $385,000.
“This came to mind because of our budget difficulties,” Fair said, explaining that the state Department of Probation, Parole and Pardons worried over having the funds to carry out its responsibilities for a recently passed law aimed at child sex offenders.
Not everyone on the committee was pleased at Fair’s method for raising money for the agency. “That’s certainly a terrible way to fund an agency,” said Sen. John Land, leader of the Senate Democrats.
The proviso now heads to the Senate floor. If passed along with other budget provisos, it goes to the House, which has already passed its own version of the budget.
Differences are worked out by a team of lawmakers from each chamber.
Fair said he pulled the 20 percent number “out of the air,” figuring 10 percent wouldn’t be enough.
“Twenty percent is not that much, but it starts pushing the limit on a surcharge,” he said, adding that he considers pornography demeaning to women but an accepted form of entertainment in American society.
The proviso would add the tax to “adult entertainment printed materials,” which it defines as those whose substantial purpose is the sale or distribution of “sexually explicit matter and that is prohibited to persons under the age of 18.”
The materials also include those that depict frontal nudity, according to the proviso, which it defines as “exposure of any genitalia or exposure of the entire breast of women in a manner that a reasonable/average person applying contemporary community standards would find to be a lascivious exhibition.”
Fair said he has been told by state tax officials that collection of the surcharge wouldn’t be difficult and that the materials are easily identified because they are all sold in wrappers.
Not included are materials whose purpose is educational, according to the proviso. The proviso, like all budget provisos, only lasts one year, though it can be renewed.
Fair also proposed a proviso to increase alcohol license fees to help pay the increased cost of alcohol monitoring for the agency.
But the proviso was ruled out of order because of a rule that provisos cannot change or create a law. Lawmakers passed a law in recent years increasing the alcohol license fee to provide funds for the State Law Enforcement Division, Fair said.
He said he plans to try to submit the proposal again once the budget hits the Senate floor.
Published in the Greenville News
By Tim Smith
April 3, 2008
CAPITAL BUREAU
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