{"id":307,"date":"2026-06-03T12:36:40","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T12:36:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/northcarolinamovingjournal.com\/?p=307"},"modified":"2026-06-03T12:36:40","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T12:36:40","slug":"nc-senate-considers-tax-on-obscene-materials-social-media-age-limits-license-plate-readers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/northcarolinamovingjournal.com\/?p=307","title":{"rendered":"NC Senate considers tax on obscene materials, social media age limits, license plate readers"},"content":{"rendered":"
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North Carolina lawmakers are proposing a 50% excise tax on \u201cprurient\u201d or \u201cobscene\u201d sexual material that\u2019s harmful to minors as a way to raise funds to combat human trafficking. But it\u2019s not clear how much revenue could ever be collected.<\/p>\n

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The proposal, Senate Bill 1007, would also appropriate funds to develop a North Carolina Human Trafficking Commission. Members of the North Carolina Senate Judiciary Committee observed on Tuesday that the state\u2019s current prevention efforts are in need of better coordination.<\/p>\n

Sen. Ted Alexander (R-Cleveland) said the state has ranked as high as eighth in the country in human trafficking cases.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to continue advancing the training tools and resources necessary to adequately support victim survivors and to hold traffickers accountable,\u201d Alexander said. \u201cServices in North Carolina do remain fragmented despite a long desire for collaboration and coordination across sectors.\u201d<\/p>\n

The excise tax would apply only to material that is already illegal under state law, including obscene content that is \u201cpatently offensive\u201d under community standards and not protected by the First Amendment, as well as sexually explicit material that is sold to minors.<\/p>\n

In an interview, Alexander said he believes the tax will primarily be applied after criminal charges have been filed.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy understanding is that when these things are confiscated, when they\u2019re sold and they\u2019re caught selling those kinds of things that are illegal, that there is a tax to be paid on those and the Department of Revenue can assess what that is at that time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He said the committee has not yet received projections of the revenue that the state could expect to collect under the bill, but that they have requested that information.<\/p>\n

The bill also bars the state Department of Revenue and its personnel from sharing any \u201cconfidential tax information\u201d obtained through this process for use in criminal prosecutions over prurient materials.<\/p>\n

During the committee meeting, lawmakers identified some OnlyFans payments and pornographic magazines as potentially qualifying as prurient materials subject to the tax, though determination would ultimately be up to the Department of Revenue.<\/p>\n

The tax revenue collected would go toward anti-human trafficking, domestic violence, and children\u2019s advocacy efforts.<\/p>\n

Senate Democratic Leader Sydney Batch (D-Wake) expressed reservations about leaving the question of what qualifies as \u201cprurient\u201d up to the discretion of state revenue officers, noting that the tax assessment process offers fewer protections than a court of law.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do think that it\u2019s extremely problematic when we have the subjective nature of allowing, by way of example, Charlie from Revenue to be the one person who determines what is, in fact, prurient information,\u201d Batch said.<\/p>\n

Batch questioned whether the measure would do much to curb human trafficking. \u201cI do support, obviously, taxing bad actors in this space, but I think that we can be pretty bold and do really meaningful legislation in this short session in order to try and actually protect people from ever being human-trafficked in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The Senate Judiciary Committee also discussed several other bills Tuesday morning, including a proposal passed by the House to prohibit minors under 14 from using \u201caddictive social media platforms\u201d and a bill allowing the State Bureau of Investigation to install license plate readers on North Carolina highways.<\/p>\n

House Bill 301, a social media and AI safety bill that passed the House last month, was met with broad support from the senators on the panel, though Democrats pressed Republicans to go further. Batch, the Senate Democratic Leader, asked bill sponsor Rep. Jeff Zenger (R-Forsyth), whether Republican lawmakers would be willing to expand the ban on addictive social media use from 13 and under to 17 and under. He replied that he was open to such an amendment.<\/p>\n

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