Sixteen Percent Tax On Concert Tickets In Harrisburg
I’m outraged. Flabbergasted.
Disgusted.
With Rendell’s newest budget proposal of adding a six percent entertainment tax to ticket sales of concerts, theater and symphony events, that would leave Harrisburg concertgoers stuck with having to pay an astronomical SIXTEEN PERCENT TAX to see their favorite band or show.
The City of Harrisburg already has a ten percent amusement tax in place (non profits are exempt) and adding the proposed six percent from the state would place promoters of for-profit events in the uncomfortable position of passing along the extra cost to the consumer.
A ticket that currently costs ten dollars would now cost eleven dollars and sixty cents. Doesn’t sound like much? Consider this…
A ten dollar show is a regional or “baby” national, upcoming band. The Hackensaw Boys is a ten dollar ticket. Mike Doughty is on sale right now for fifteen.
But want to see a bigger name? It’s a minimum of thirty bucks. That’s what a concert ticket costs. If the latest budget proposal goes into effect, it will thereby raise ticket prices even MORE than they are already taxed.
Because, for a promoter, it’s not just the sales tax. LiveNation and Ticketmaster seem to increase their service and “convenience” fees every day.
Just this past weekend, we had Beerfest at Appalachian Brewing Company. The main way of purchasing tickets was online. The only complaint from attendees was that on a thirty dollar ticket, there were over five dollars in “service” and “convenience” fees attached.
Add to that, a promoters profit on an event is anywhere from twelve to fifteen percent of gross ticket sales. So, essentially, the state and the city will earn substantially more than the promoter will on a concert or ticketed event.
And that’s fair, how? How is it fair and just that an industry whose service and product is produced solely in the minds of it’s purveyors…there are no factories spewing noxious gasses into the environment. We do not outsource production of a sixteen minute jam to a company in China. We do not take away from any other industry by consolidation of services.
Live Music is created by the people who perform it. And promoters are the ones who distribute that product to the public. We, literally, enrich lives. And now our government wants to tax that even MORE than it’s already taxed.
Many of you thought I was crazy for making such a big deal about our local amusement tax. Many of you thought I’d never get that changed and that I was pissing in the wind. But now that we’re faced with yet ANOTHER tax…imposed by the state…I don’t seem so crazy, do I?
The shows i put on in Syracuse, we use a few different ways to sell tix..pay pal etc…but we also use ticketmaster, just as an option. We did a show with a 10 dollar ticket and the Ticketmonster fees were 7 BUCKS! its so insane
You really should just go and run for office.
That said. You need to think about the ‘hand in glove’ part of all this. The hand… taxes part, you’ve got right. They are excessive and it’s kinda an easy target to point that out. But the glove part… “we need to fund education, safety, police, improved neighborhoods, help the “elderly, pregnant, abused, handicapped homeless woman” (sorta mom and apple pie things… which you can’t be against”. Well… what do you cut and where? Who do you turn down. Who doesn’t get a piece of the pie so the pie doesn’t have to get bigger?. Tough stuff, I know. And I’ve no answers. But it’s all part of the puzzle.
Everyone knows that if you order something over the internet and the company is outside of PA that you DO NOT PAY TAXES on the item.
Also, let me add to that, if I (in PA) purchase a T-shirt from a company in MD, where they do tax clothing, I DO NOT PAY TAX on the item becuse I am purchasing it from PA.
So here is my question. In a case of Ticketmaster Internet sales, If PA Citizen John Doe buys tickets online and pays to support the arts, economy, and local performers will the out of staters be exempt becsaue they are out of state? As I see this, it only punishes the citizens of PA for buying tickets.
Seems to me, that if an out of stater purchases tickets from TM they might have to pay taxes but it is NOT going to our state…. It is directed by the state it was purchased from (if their staet even has some rediculous tax on tickets like PA).
This disgusts me.
Just sending a Green Street shout out. I heard on your blog you were staying on Green now… welcome to the block!