Alabama Proposes Whopping 40% 'Porn Tax' to Help Fund Essential Services; Bill's Definition of 'Porn' Seems Problematic

A WKRG report said the Alabama House Ways and Means Committee passed the proposed " porn tax" in a 10-4 vote last Wednesday as part of an effort to meet a $200 million budget shortfall before October 1.

Rep. Jack Williams, R-Vestavia Hills, said the whopping tax would apply to gross "receipts from the sale of sexually oriented materials."

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."

Besides making money for the state, the tax is intended to be a "sin tax," or tax on goods or services for which the state wants to limit the use, Williams explained.

"[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.

Still according to Kyle Whitmire of AL.com there is a concern about what is or isn't porn.

The bill, he says, "would not apply to 'motion pictures designated by the rating board for the Motion Picture Association of America by the letter 'R' for restricted audiences, persons under 17 years of age not admitted unless accompanied by parent or adult guardian, or the designation 'NC-17' for persons under 17 years of age admitted.' Under this law, Fifty Shades of Grey the book might be porn, but the movie, which is rated 'R,' might not be. We'll just have to see."

It is also unclear how much money the bill, which is headed to the Alabama House for a floor vote, is expected to raise and how seriously residents of the state should take it.

"The Alabama Legislative Research Office has written an analysis, called a 'fiscal note,' but it only says that it will have a positive impact on the state's General Fund. That could mean a penny or a billion dollars. No one really knows," said Whitmire.

Williams who believes he has strong enough support in the Alabama House and Senate to pass the bill said the state's 72-year-old Republican Gov. Robert Julian Bentley said earlier this summer that he would support it.