In a decision that could have a chilling effect on the activities of young lap dancing women in the UK, the High Court ruled that the nude and semi-nude women who bump, grind and otherwise gyrate on the laps of paying males are responsible for the VAT (”value added tax”) on the fees that they collect.

Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs will now be responsible for collecting a percentage of each light caress, seductive squeeze, and inadvertent cop from independent contractors such as Brandy, Letissa, Porshe, and Monique.

Customer: How much is a dance?
Stripper: If I’m topless it’s 10 pounds, if I’m nude it’s 20 pounds, and if another girl joins us it’s 50 pounds.
Customer: Bring it on!
Stripper: Oh yeah, don’t forget to add 17.5% VAT.
Customer: Buzz kill.

One blogger quipped it a “pole tax.”

lap dance vat

This entry was posted on Monday, March 26th, 2007 at 11:21 pm by Insider and is filed under How Not To Succeed In Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.