NEWS: Strip Tax Being Conspired In Norway

CULTURE: Strip Tax Being Conspired In Norway

The courts ruled, but Finance Minister isn't having it. Even though last year a judge in Oslo, Norway, ruled that striptease is an art form and thereby exempt from the country's value added tax, Finance Minister Kristen Halvorsen said she would explore ways to amend the laws so that tax revenues could be enforced on strip clubs.

The obsession with securing the tax dollars seems to confirm the suspicions of the club owner who first prompted the courts' involvement. In Norway, all other staged dance acts enjoy a tax free status.

Last year the owners of Diamond Go Go Bar refused to pay the 25% tax placed on the entry fee to clubs. Oslo tax authorities took the club to court in an attempt to collect the overdue fees. Instead, they were surprised to find that stripping is in fact an art form and therefore exempt under incentive protections afforded to Norway's artists.

It's alarming that Halvorsen, disappointed with the ruling, has decided that manipulating her power and tweaking laws is the ethical thing to do. I hope whatever she attempts to do doesn't inflict collateral damage on tax protections that other artists who currently enjoy.

It most likely has a moral component but, let's not overlook that strip clubs are probably the most revenue generating of all the 'arts'.

I'd really like to know how a lap dance is in anyway similar to something comprable to a broadway show.

because it's comparable to a striptease, which is similar to burlesque, which is comparable to some off-Broadway shows, which is comparable to a Broadway show.

To be fair, they made a comparison to sword-swallowing, which is also hardly on par with a broadway show. Lots of things considered art aren't tasteful or particularly skillful. Trying to say it has to be on par with broadway shows to be lawfully considered art is a little extreme.

Not to mention pointless, I find broadway shows rather dull and contrived, I greatly admire some of the people that make realistic street art with spray cans and crayon.
But people would look at me funny if I tried to compare broadway shows to a guy in a knitted cap with some crayons, just because he doesn't have the budget to do it on a broadway stage.

I've seen some sg's post videoclips of their pole routines in their journals and i'm continually amazed by it.

Changing the law on grounds of greed and morals is virtually Stalinist. It's crazy that the Norwegian people are taxed so heavily despite their huge North Sea Oil reserves.
Boo.

I don't think strip clubs should be taxed based on moral principles, but I can understand our government's desires to tax the high revenues they generate...

Zamuzel, we are taxed so that we can have a WELFARE system(something the UK used to have pre-Thatcher), and so that people actually can survive on minimum wage.

If the public opinion got their ways, we'd be spending all our oil money on tax breaks and privatizing every possible commodity, putting us in the same category as the UK and the US; Low taxes, no welfare and enormously expensive medical insurances.

I don't want that.

I don't think that anyone should be able to skip out on taxes if they're making money. Strippers should have to pay taxes on the tips they earn just like a waiter or bartender (especially since most would be hidden anyways) and the establishments should have to pay taxes just like any other business. My question would be does the no tax on art forms apply to non-live forms, such as painting. I know architects are taxed just like everyone else, and plenty of their work would be considered art by many more people than stripping or sword-swallowing

Very well put. I wish the US could be more prgressive and tax more to provide for the people of the country. For a country supposedly founded in "for the people, by the people," it sure has turned out to be "for the money, by the money." The wellfare of the people of the nation has taken a backseat to the all mighty dollar and those whose possess it.

Yeah, strippers have integrity.