The Comic Con
While most organizations reporting on San Diego’s Comic-Con are probably looking for the exciting announcements and leaks, the San Diego Union-Tribune ran a story Wednesday revealing the convention’s “charity” status.
…the 38th annual San Diego Comic-Con International, which opens tonight, is registered with the federal government as a public charity, placed in the same general category as many schools, hospitals and churches.
As such, the pop-culture extravaganza, which generates about $5 million in revenue each year, is exempt from income taxes and pays less in city traffic-control fees.
That loss of money to government coffers means the public is, in effect, subsidizing an event that has become a massive promotional vehicle for new movies, TV shows, comics and toys.
The story goes on to say the event’s organizers justify the classification by saying the convention is educational.
More at the Union-Tribune.
I don’t really get the point of this article. Should I be outraged? Considering how much revenue the Con must generate for local businesses, I’m not surprised they’d be given some tax breaks.
This line of logic would suggest that all the other tourist attractions who follow the laws as they’re intended somehow don’t generate revenue.
Of course it generates a lot of tourist money. But to allow it to get away without paying taxes, and now being fully aware as the city is that if they make the Con follow the law they risk losing it, is just corporate blackmail.
That line of logic suggests that Comic Con is doing something illegal, when in fact the government says they aren’t. If the government wanted to revoke (or re-evaluate or re-whatever) their tax status, I’m sure they could. Comic Con’s only exploiting the system if the government is allowing them to.
So basically you’re agreeing with me, right? Because a big part of corporate blackmail is that the government willfully goes along with the wrongdoing out of financial fear. The government could revoke that status, but they aren’t going to.
So here are issues raised in the story:
1. Awareness that if Comic-Con were forced to re-apply for their charity status, there are definite doubts they would qualify.
2. Veiled threat that if Comic-Con were not given the charitable exemptions, they would leave San Diego.
3. The city and convention center’s awareness of this threat.
Here’s another UT story about Comic-Con with quotes from Jeph Loeb and Reggie Hudlin: link
Should the Comic Con be considered a charity? No. I wouldn’t argue that point. I just think it might be one of those sort-of-shady things where it might be best if everyone just ignored it. Someone will give Comic Con tax breaks to have the con in their city, so it might as well be San Diego. The city makes extra money from the taxes that local businesses pay when they make extra money when the con’s in town. So there’s still a net positive to the whole thing. Maybe “it’s going to happen anyway, so what’s the point” is sort of a defeatist way to look at things, but we’re talking about less than a million dollars in profit here. There’s so many other corporations that make so much more money in so much more diabolical ways that this just seems unimportant by comparison.
Come to Atlanta!
Dragon Con BLOWZ! 😈