BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU
or was that BIG CEILING CAT?
Posted on 11/09/2012 1:20:26 PM PST by tired&retired
A New York strip club can’t claim a tax exemption on entrance and performance fees on the grounds that it presents “musical arts performances,” the state’s highest court ruled.
The New York Court of Appeals in Albany upheld Tuesday a lower court’s ruling that Nite Moves, an adult “juice bar” in Latham, N.Y., didn’t prove to tax authorities that its stage and couch dances merited the exemption granted to artistic performances.
“It is not irrational for the tax tribunal to decline to extend a tax exemption to every act that declares itself a ‘dance performance,’” the Court of Appeals said in a 4-3 decision.
The club, which was required to show that its fees were admission charges for choreographed dance routines, failed to prove that performances on either the main stage or in private rooms qualified for the tax break, the Court of Appeals said.
Private Dances The state’s Tax Appeal Tribunal discredited an expert presented by the club who said the performances were choreographed, finding that her testimony was compromised by her opinion that private dances were the same as those on the main stage although she didn’t observe them or have personal knowledge, according to the ruling.
The tribunal is a panel of three commissioners appointed by the governor that heads the state’s Division of Tax Appeals, created by the legislature in 1986 to resolve tax and licensing disputes, according to its Web site.
Court of Appeals Judge Robert S. Smith disagreed with the majority, saying the tribunal’s ruling “makes a distinction between highbrow dance and lowbrow dance that is not to be found in the governing statute and raises significant constitutional problems.”
Hustler Tax “Like the majority and the tribunal, I find this particular form of dance unedifying— indeed, I am stuffy enough to find it distasteful,” Smith wrote in his dissent. “Perhaps, for similar reasons I do not read Hustler magazine; I would rather read the New Yorker. I would be appalled, however, if the state were to exact from Hustler a tax that the New Yorker did not have to pay, on the ground that what appears in Hustler is insufficiently ‘cultural and artistic.’”
The majority said qualifying the dances as artistic performances would “allow the exemption to swallow the general tax” since other forms of entertainment not specified by the Legislature would ask to be spared from the levy.
Considering Alternatives
Andrew McCullough, a Utah-based attorney representing Nite Moves, didn’t immediately respond to messages seeking comment on the ruling. McCullough told the Associated Press that he and his clients are disappointed with the ruling and are considering alternatives that include a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The club had appealed an assessment of $124,000 in sales tax plus interest, Cary B. Ziter, a spokesman for the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance, said in a telephone interview.
“We’ve been saying all along that they failed to prove that a tax exemption applied in this situation,” Ziter said in a statement. “We’re pleased with this decision, because it gives similar business clear guidance on the issue of sales tax when it comes to live exotic dance establishments.”
The case is 677 New Loudon Corp. v. New York Tax Appeals Tribunal, 157, New York Court of Appeals (Albany).
LOL. New Yorkers love the sex and nudity but never ever let a chance to tax pass them by.
What!? Well just DAMN!!!
In Houston, the lesbian mayor supported a “rape tax” on Houston’s non-topless t!ttybars. You can’t even show nipples with the sale of alcohol.
Yet we have one of the nation’s largest gay pride parades.
Down is up. Consenting adults are not all equal. Especially consenting heterosexuals in “private” (vs. public streets).
The power to tax is the power to control.
They still heavily enforce the cabaret laws in NYC. Can’t have live music performance or even members of the audience dancing without the proper permits (4 people dancing to the jukebox is a violation).
The big joke is that the remake of Footloose should have been set in some liberal Mecca like SF or NYC where they heavily regulate the type of music played and level of promoter that can put together shows. Goes back to the original Jazz era.
Since the adult entertainment industry vote went overwhelmingly for the Obermahdi, I say tax them until their pasties fall off.
I know that this will make it harder for all those sincere exotic dancers to take care of their sick mothers or pay for their college tuition, but elections have consequences and so does stupidity.
I was opening a business in New York a few years ago and much to my surprise, I had to pay $100 for a permit to pay my employees by check rather than by cash. Honest, I am not making this up.
We live in Ohio and went to NY for fertility treatment.
The nurse said it was her duty to inform us that it is illegal in NY to bring semen in from out of state. To conform with the letter of the law, I would need to wait until we crossed the state line before I “processed” my deposit.
I couldn’t help but wonder if they had “sperm police” in NY state and, if so, what their badges looked like.
BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU
or was that BIG CEILING CAT?
As an accountant, I find this more amusing than most tax-accounting details ;-).
At my employer in Texas, we always enjoyed the weird elements of New York tax law, even though compliance was a nightmare.
Strip clubs of every stripe stripped of tax exemption.
I’m also a CPA so I understand! The funniest tax return I ever worked on was about 30 years ago. I’m not sure what country it was, possibly Greece. It was a Dowry Tax return. I was working for an international CPA firm at the time.
LOL! I never did any foreign tax returns, but my boss had a client whose investment were all in Britain, so each year I had to find the exchange rates, by day, of all his purchases and sails. It was on microfilm in the library basement, daily Wall Street Journal pages. All instantly online these days, of course, but back around 1990 it was $10 an hour of looking up exchange rates!
We did an estate once where a man with 11 brothers and sisters was trying to get all of them to quitclaim on their father’s house, because the one brother had paid the mortgage and maintained it the last 10 years the father lived. Did the paperwork in English, and then I had to keep calling all the people, in Spanish, to find out if they would sign, why wouldn’t they sign, couldn’t the find a stamp to mail it, etc.
Darn, that was a mess of typso.
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