Pole Tax

Nevada senator Bob Coffin has proposed a $5 tax on every prostitution transaction that occurs in the state, according to a Las Vegas Sun report. Coffin says the tax would raise an additional $2 million a year for Nevada, and a lobbyist for the legal brothel industry supports the idea.

I think we will support [the tax], said George Flint, director of the Nevada Brothel Owners Association. There are 28 legal brothels operating in Nevada, along with illegal unlicensed prostitution, and prostitution is actually illegal in the city of Las Vegas. Coffin's proposed tax would apply to both legal and illegal prostitution.

The proposed tax would be paid by customers, not levied from the prostitutes' wages.

A proposal to levy a $5 tax on sex acts in Nevada has died in a state Senate committee.

The 3-4 vote Thursday in the Nevada Senate Taxation Committee was one shy of the four needed to keep the proposal afloat.

Committee Chairman Bob Coffin, the Las Vegas Democrat who sponsored the bill, says the state is desperate for revenue and has not collected taxes from prostitution since it was legalized in some rural counties more than 30 years ago.

The Utah Supreme Court has ruled that a state tax on strip clubs is constitutional but that the same tax on escort services is not.

Passed in 2004, the tax levies a statewide 10% tax on admission and user fees charged by sexually-explicit businesses, defined as any business where a nude or partially denuded employee or contractor performs any service. Utah-produced merchandise, food and drinks sold by these businesses also are subject to the tax.

The statute also levies a tax on escort services, which are defined as any person who furnishes or arranges for an escort who is compensated to accompany another individual for companionship. An escort is any individual who is available to the public for the purpose of accompanying another individual for compensated companionship.

Associate Chief Justice Matthew B. Durrant said that the state's Sexually Explicit Business and Escort Service Tax is content-neutral when applied to nudity.

In this case, application of the tax is triggered by nudity, which the Supreme Court has specifically declared 'is not an inherently expressive condition, Durrant wrote. Because it is not inherently expressive, nudity is unprotected conduct rather than protected expression.

Regarding the taxing of escort services, Durrant found that the language was fatally overbroad, but opened the door to a legislative revision that included more specific language. Nowhere does the statute define an escort in terms of nudity, he wrote. The statute also fails to define the term 'companionship.' Therefore, according to the plain terms of the statute, individuals who are paid for providing care for the elderly as well as those who are paid as tour guides would fall within the definition of an 'escort,' and any person or business who employs them would be subject to the tax.

State Senator Matt Bartle's eight-year mean minded quest to crack down on Missouri strip clubs finally succeeded this week.

The state Senate voted 27-4 for legislation that will ban full nudity and prohibit adult businesses from selling alcohol. The clubs also would have to close between midnight and 6 a.m.

Most human beings understand that if you mix alcohol and women dancing in the nude, that's a tough combo, said Bartle: Bad things happen.

The vote, combined with the House's 118-28 vote earlier, sends the bill to Governor Jay Nixon. A spokesman for the Democratic governor said he was inclined to sign it. He is generally supportive of tighter restrictions on these types of businesses, spokesman Jack Cardetti said.

Opponents said if enacted, the new law will almost certainly result in a court challenge. They said the law will hurt all strip clubs and hundreds, and maybe thousands, of workers will lose their jobs.

Under the proposal, the adult entertainment industry would undergo  major restrictions. Juice bars that don't sell alcohol, but present nude dancers would be outlawed. Semi-nude dancers would have to stay at least 6 feet away from patrons and no touching would be allowed.

All that lap dancing stuff, that's gone, Bartle said.

Adult businesses could not operate within 1,000 feet of a school, church, day-care facility, library, park, residence or another adult business. Operators of any adult establishment would have to have an unobstructed view…of every area of the premises.

The bill's passage came on the second to last day of the 2010 session and represented Bartle's last shot at passing a bill because he is retiring from the Senate.

Another strip club tax is being considered by California's Legislature. AB 2441 is set to place a $10 fee on visitors of establishments that offer alcohol and topless or nude performances.

It's the fourth attempt to tax sexually explicit businesses in the past four years in California. All of those bills, which would have levied a 20% sales tax were shot down. A tax raising bill requires a two-thirds vote of both the Assembly and Senate.

AB 2441, however, would be the first legislative action to mandate a fixed-fee pole tax .

JA spokesman for Californian Assemblyman Das Williams said that strip clubs are a good possible resource for funding because there's already a model to tax adult entertainment establishments. Pole taxes are now mandatory in Texas and Utah, with legislation being mulled for similar tariffs for adult entertainment customers in Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Tennessee. He said that the bill is on track in the Assembly and could be approved by both houses in September.

Houston council voted this week to levy a $5 fee on strip club customers of the city's 30 licensed strip bars. This in addition to the $5 fee to the state of Texas when visiting an adult venue, thanks to a law passed in 2007.

The moral tax will be ring-fenced and put towards analysing forensic evidence collected from rape victims.

Supporters of the so-called pole tax argue that lap-dancing clubs must shoulder some of the financial burden of rape investigations , on the supposed grounds that their businesses help foster misogynistic attitudes towards women, which can lead to sexual assaults. If they were being fair about it then the tax would have been better targeted at the Catholic Church.

The morality tax was passed by 14 votes to one. The ordinance stipulates that the fee also applies to bars and night-clubs which offer one-off events that could be construed as sexually explicit, such as wet T-shirt contests or naked sushi contests .

Albert Van Huff, a Houston lawyer who represents strip clubs, told the Journal that the tax is based on flawed logic. There is no known correlation between people going to nice, high-end gentlemen's clubs and rape, he said.

New York's highest court is set to hear arguments on whether Nite Moves , a strip club in suburban Albany, deserves a state tax exemption similar to that for theater or ballet.

State tax officials say the club owes an 8% sales tax for admissions to the club and for so-called couch sales, where patrons pay for private lap dances, the Associated Press reports.

Nite Moves claims the dances are exempt under state tax law as live dramatic or musical arts performances, which applies to theater and ballet, the AP reports.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's office argues in its briefs that some Nite Moves performers have no dance training and simple pick it up by watching. Such a dancer isn't engaged in a genuine choreographic dance performance when she removes her clothing, the brief says.

But Stephen Dick, the club's CFO, dismisses the notion that formal training should be any critera when its comes to entertainment.

Two Philadelphia strip clubs are appealing huge taxes levied against them by the city based on a so-called amusement tax that usually is applied to admission fees but in this case someone dreamed up the wheeze that it should also apply to lap dance revenue. The taxes are not slight, Club Risque was charged $320,538, and Cheerleaders was charged $486,482.

Club attorney, George Bochetto, called foul, accusing the city of auditing lap dance revenue and then going back five years and tacking on fines. It's over the top. Unbelievable, he told Philly.com:

The clubs, of course, pay business taxes in addition to the amusement tax, and dancers are supposed to pay income and wage taxes. An informed City Hall source says the city feels it can run an amusement tax up the pole because the lap dance is a separate experience.

Bochetto says that's double-dipping.