Portland Council President Jamie Dunphy says he plans to pursue an unusual way for local government to bolster live entertainment citywide: a tax on streaming service giants.
Dunphy told The Oregonian/OregonLive in an interview Monday that he will propose imposing a surcharge on companies like Netflix, Spotify and Amazon Prime Video to support music, dance and theater productions.
[More: “Portland council president wants to reshape city’s detested arts tax — and impose a new, separate one”]
He said that he hopes that such a measure, akin to one that’s existed in Chicago for more than a decade, could generate as much as $10 million annually in Portland.
“I firmly believe that the largest societal challenge we have right now is that people aren’t going out and being around each other,” Dunphy, a one-time touring musician and outspoken champion of Portland’s arts and music scenes, said. “And if, as a city, if as a government, we want to have a vibrant economy, we simply must encourage people to get out.”
During the interview, Dunphy also said he will seek to reform and reshape the city’s existing arts tax, which he said is outdated, poorly administered and in need of change.
While his plans are still far from finalized, Dunphy said he intends to bring them forward to City Council in the coming months.
“I think I’m sort of uniquely positioned to be the only councilor right now who can and will dive into this sort of relatively thorny issue,” he said. “I still firmly believe that everybody loves art and everybody loves kids and everybody hates the arts tax.”