The short answer is that then they’d have to acknowledge that Nevada has legal brothels (25 in number) in 10 counties. Or as Gov. Jim Gibbons put it, using the convoluted verbiage with which Nevadans have become familiar, "I'm not a supporter of legalizing prostitution in Nevada. So by taxing it, there's a recognition of the legality of it. And that's all I want to say."
So apparently if we don’t tax prostitution, we can pretend it’s illegal. Or something like that. Nevada law permits brothels to be legalized at the county level, which is why it’s legal in most, but not all, of the Silver State. According to Moonlite Bunny Ranch owner Dennis Hof, some brothels pay $600,000 a year in taxes to their respective counties.
At least as far back as 1991 –- and as recently as the 2007 Legislature –- Nevada’s houses of ill-repute have let it be known they’re not averse to taxation by the state as well. The issue arose again late last year when Nevada Brothel Owners Association President George Flint told Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley his constituents would be willing to become part of the tax base. "It’s a life insurance policy," he explained. "If we pay into the state general fund, the state might say, ‘Hell, we can’t give this up. They pay too much.’"
Even though she would soon be confronted with a $2-billion-plus budgetary shortfall, Buckley told Flint, "We’re not hurting so much want to use that kind of money." Which is ironic when one considers that, at the time, the brothel industry was the only one in Nevada that was volunteering to pay taxes.
A bill draft that would have traded off brothel taxes for permission to operate a "pilot program" of three bordellos in Las Vegas also met with a stony response. Buckley said it would go unheard by lawmakers, adding, "I do not support legalizing prostitution."
A month later, state Sen. Bob Coffin proposed a prostitution tax of –- there’s really no other way to put it -- $5 a lay. He estimated it would raise $2 million a year in additional revenue (which breaks down to 1,096 sex acts per day statewide, in case you were wondering). He later doubled that figure, which suggests that our brothels are very busy places indeed.
Some of the newly obtained lucre would go toward an ombudsman who would, it was argued, help sex workers get out of the industry. Bob Fischer, publicist for the Chicken Ranch brothel, said his employer supported Coffin’s bill, because "they want to be good citizens."
Senate hearings were conducted, although Coffin got off on the wrong foot when he tried to explain that his bill would not encourage the spread of the oldest profession. It "will not encourage your daughters to go into the business –- they are already there."
Ahem! Moving right along … the hearing showed a lack of consensus among brothel owners. Kenneth Green, the proprietor of the Chicken Ranch, qualified his support of SB 369 by saying it should be paid by customers, not the establishment, and that it should be coded so that brothel transactions didn’t show up on johns’ credit-card statements.
His colleague Bella Cummings, proud owner of Bella’s Hacienda Ranch, in Wells, Nev., feared a $5/head tax would drive legal establishments like hers out of business, because illegal prostitutes in Reno and Las Vegas could gain a competetive advantage. "This places an additional financial burden on an industry that is facing uncertain times," she testified.
Psychologist Melissa Farley was flat-out opposed, saying a bordello tax would put Nevada in the business of "legislative pimping." She called Coffin’s bill a "Trojan horse … written in a more deceptive way in the hope that no one would read it carefully enough to realize it is proposing to tax all prostitution service, illegal as well as legal." How the state would tax illegal prostitution was a question that was begged.
Variants of Coffin’s bill were floating about, too. An Assembly version would have mandated a $2/session tax. Flint counterproposed a $20 brothel admission fee, to be paid by johns and split 9/1 between the prostitute and the state. By Flint’s estimate, this would have yielded an annual $3.2 million in tax dollars.
It was all for naught. On April 9, the senate’s Taxation Committee consigned Coffin’s bill to the grave on a 4-3 vote. Some lawmakers were apparently spooked by Dennis Hof’s remark that a brothel tax would give his profession "respectability and acceptability." Sen. Terry Care, one of the nays, rejoined that he found prostitution neither legitimate nor acceptable.
His colleague Mike Schneider, who voted "aye," pointed out an apparent double standard. "Drive Spring Mountain Road and see all the massage places. I don't see a dragnet to clean it up … Look at the billboards on trucks advertising girls to your room. I am not naive in thinking what ‘girls to your room’ means," he complained. "But we are going to be very moral and say, ‘I will not impose a tax?’ We don't have the courage to vote it in or shut it down."
LVA researcher Heidi Christ, who collaborated on this QoD, appended the following analysis of the Great Nevada Bordello Quandary: "The reason a brothel tax can’t get passed is that there are just too many questions riding on the coattails of the proposal. Questions of morality, fairness, business ethics, and practicality are stopping up the works. The Brothel Owners Association has been trying to get a tax passed since 2005, not because they crave the satisfaction of performing their patriotic duty, but because they want some sort of government protection in the face of an ever-deteriorating economy.
"The desire of certain lawmakers (and Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman) to extend this tax to Las Vegas and Reno by way of legalizing and regulating prostitution only invites another endless line of questions. How do we regulate prostitution in Las Vegas? How do you collect these taxes from independent sex workers? It’s entirely impractical. It seems this bill is a long way from being passed yet it’s also a long way from being entirely thrown out of the great cave of ideas."
As for the brothel owners, we’ll probably see them again at the 2011 Legislature. And if Nevada’s revenue problems are no less dire then than they are now, they may well find the extra votes they need.
