Amsterdam Red Light District

Sex tax
Monday, 17 January 2011 17:57
prostitutes to pay taxThe Dutch government has announced that it will tax the wages of the country's famed prostitutes. Individual prostitutes should be charging a 19% sales tax, but often don't.

Some governments are so broke they'll try to collect on everything they can.

Indeed, workers in the world's oldest profession in Holland are about to get a lesson in the harsh reality of austerity.

The Dutch government has warned prostitutes who advertise their wares in the famed windows of Amsterdam's red-light district to expect a business-only visit from the tax man.

Prostitution has flourished in Amsterdam since the 1600s, when the Netherlands was a major naval power and sailors swaggered into the port looking for a good time. Even though the country legalized the practice a decade ago, authorities are only now getting around to taxing individual sex workers.

"We began at the larger places, the brothels, so now we're moving on to the window landlords and the ladies," a spokeswoman for the country's Tax Service said.

Under Dutch law, prostitutes should be charging 19% sales tax on each transaction. Customers typically pay €50 for a 15-minute session.

Samantha, a sex worker in the city, isn't so worried.

"How can they tell how many people come inside each day or how much money changes hands once the curtain is drawn?" she asked. "Not many customers ask for a receipt."

Nobody knows how many prostitutes there are or how many of them pay tax, because legal ones are registered as one-women businesses, not brothels. But an Amsterdam-chartered study in October estimated there are slightly fewer than 8,000 prostitutes in the city, and 3,000 working behind windows. An industry think-tank called the SOR Institute believes around 40 percent of window prostitutes already pay some income tax.
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