Working girls must pay tax, Amsterdam officials insist

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. The country legalised the practice a decade ago, but authorities are only now getting around to looking to sex workers for taxes.

Janneke Verheggen, spokeswoman for the country's tax service, said: "We began at the larger places, the brothels; now we're moving on to the window landlords and the ladies."

The move is meeting with little formal opposition, even among prostitutes - though some are sceptical it can be enforced. But it marks yet another shift away from the permissive attitudes that once prevailed in the Netherlands.

"It's a good thing that they're doing this," said Samantha, a statuesque blonde in a white leather dress who offers her services from behind one of the hundreds of red-curtained windows in the heart of the city.

"It's a job like any other and we should pay taxes."

She said she had been paying her share for years and felt she was competing on unequal terms with women who didn't.

Although the Netherlands has weathered the fallout from the 2008 financial crisis better than many countries, the government ran a deficit of 6 per cent in 2010 and is cutting spending and raising taxes in hopes of balancing the budget by 2015.

Prostitutes learned they were to be audited via a notice addressed "to landlords and window prostitutes in Amsterdam" published in the city's main newspaper.

It said: "Agents of the tax service will walk through various elements of your business administration with you, such as prices, staffing, agendas and calendars. The facts will be used at a later date in reviewing your returns."

The sex trade is a serious industry that went almost entirely untaxed until legalisation.

The Central Bureau of Statistics estimates prostitution generates €660 million (about 550m) in annual turnover, or a little less than €50 (41) per person in the country of 16 million.

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

In addition, after-expense profits are deemed personal income, taxed at between 33 per cent for someone making less than €18,000 per year to 52 per cent for those making more than €54,000.

Nobody knows exactly how many prostitutes there are in Amseterdam, or how many of them pay tax. But a study in October estimated there are slightly less than 8,000 prostitutes of all kinds in the city, and 3,000 working behind windows.An industry think tank called the SOR Institute believes around 40 per cent of window prostitutes already pay some income tax.

Mariska Majoor, a former prostitute who now runs an information centre in the district, said: "It's more all the time - though of course there are some sex workers who refuse. Their attitude is, we are stigmatised, made to feel that we are not part of society, we have trouble in getting a bank account - why should we pay taxes?"

Metje Blaak, who heads a prostitutes's union called The Red Thread, said she endorsed taxation, though it would hurt businesswomen already struggling to pay rent.

In 2008, Amsterdam began closing one-third of its brothels, saying it wanted to combat organised crime, reduce abuse of prostitutes and improve the city's image.

Bartho Boer, a spokesman for the mayor, said the city did not request the tax crackdown, but supported it, adding: "This helps against human trafficking and coercion."