North Carolina lawmakers are proposing a 50% excise tax on “prurient” or “obscene” sexual material that’s harmful to minors as a way to raise funds to combat human trafficking. But it’s not clear how much revenue could ever be collected.
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’s current prevention efforts are in need of better coordination.
Sen. Ted Alexander (R-Cleveland) addresses the Senate Judiciary Committee on June 2, 2026. (Photo: NCGA.gov screenshot)Sen. Ted Alexander (R-Cleveland) said the state has ranked as high as eighth in the country in human trafficking cases.
“We want to continue advancing the training tools and resources necessary to adequately support victim survivors and to hold traffickers accountable,” Alexander said. “Services in North Carolina do remain fragmented despite a long desire for collaboration and coordination across sectors.”
The excise tax would apply only to material that is already illegal under state law, including obscene content that is “patently offensive” under community standards and not protected by the First Amendment, as well as sexually explicit material that is sold to minors.
In an interview, Alexander said he believes the tax will primarily be applied after criminal charges have been filed.
“My understanding is that when these things are confiscated, when they’re sold and they’re 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,” he said.
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.
The bill also bars the state Department of Revenue and its personnel from sharing any “confidential tax information” obtained through this process for use in criminal prosecutions over prurient materials.
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.
The tax revenue collected would go toward anti-human trafficking, domestic violence, and children’s advocacy efforts.
North Carolina Senate Democratic leader Sydney Batch (D-Wake) speaks to reporters on Oct. 20, 2025. (Photo: Galen Bacharier/NC Newsline)Senate Democratic Leader Sydney Batch (D-Wake) expressed reservations about leaving the question of what qualifies as “prurient” up to the discretion of state revenue officers, noting that the tax assessment process offers fewer protections than a court of law.
“I do think that it’s 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,” Batch said.
Batch questioned whether the measure would do much to curb human trafficking. “I 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.”
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 “addictive social media platforms” and a bill allowing the State Bureau of Investigation to install license plate readers on North Carolina highways.
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.
Some NC House Republicans align with Meta to push app store age verification
Whitney Campbell Christensen, a lobbyist for Meta — the parent company of Facebook and Instagram — urged lawmakers to require app stores, rather than individual apps, to verify a user’s age before allowing them to download apps.
Meta and other social media companies have lobbied for what they call the App Store Accountability Act, which puts the onus of age verification on the stores, not the apps themselves. It’s already been adopted by states such as Texas, Louisiana, and Utah.
“Many of these apps can’t be trusted to self-police,” Christensen said.“Those that don’t verify ages properly will become safe havens for predators if we don’t build an effective gate at the app store level.”
Christensen also warned that laws banning teens from accessing apps have been blocked by judges in other states.
House Bill 206, which, among other public safety changes, empowers the State Bureau of Investigation to set up automated license plate readers on North Carolina highways, was met with consternation from some lawmakers and civil rights advocates.
Sen. Sophia Chitlik (D-Durham) said she does not trust the private companies that operate automated license plate readers to properly store the data they collect and protect drivers’ privacy, and fears that their personal information could be monetized or otherwise used for corporations’ financial gain. “I’m concerned about the data that’s going to be shared with private companies and the way in which those are regulated or not in current statute,” she said.
In North Carolina and many other states, private companies such as Flock Safety deploy automated license plate readers through contracts with state and local law enforcement, meaning they have access to the data those cameras collect. That’s been the focus of rising pushback within communities across the country, some of which have banned automated license plate readers entirely.
The American Civil Liberties Union has played a key role in the pushback, arguing that the cameras infringe on the right to privacy by documenting the locations of people who have not been charged with any crime.
“ALPRs do far more than identify stolen vehicles or support missing person investigations. ALPRs capture, document, and store the license plates of all vehicles that pass by along with the date, time, and location of each scan. The result is a growing database of people’s movement and associations,” said Liz Barber, an attorney with the ACLU of North Carolina. “Surveillance systems rarely remain limited to their original purpose.”
All three bills are scheduled for a vote in the Senate Judiciary committee June 3.
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