Senator Says Tax the Pimps
EmailIf the IRS can go after drug traffickers, why not sex traffickers?
That’s what Senate Finance Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) has in mind. He is proposing to have every pimp in the United States file a W-2 form for each prostitute working for him. For a pimp who employs five women, he would have to file five W-2s.
For each W-2 he failed to file, the pimp would be subject to a 10-year prison term. For a pimp with five women who failed to file any W-2s, the jail term would add up to 50 years. There would also be a financial penalty of $50,000 per violation.
In addition, Grassley would change whistleblower laws so that a victim would be able to collect a reward for turning on her pimp.
Finally, Grassley would give the IRS $2 million to set up an office in its criminal investigation unit to go after sex traffickers.
Today, Grassley will attach his "tax the pimp" provision to the Tax Payer Protection and Assistance Bill.
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Is Charlie’s notion in any way connected to Rush’s detention in Florida?
I mean, how many times have you heard the feds detaining a man at an Iowa airport for the little blue pills?
Posted by: Ira | June 28, 2006, 9:48 am 9:48 am
Start at the White House and Congress, if you’re serious. We’ve all been pimped by them!
Posted by: LaMon | June 28, 2006, 10:25 am 10:25 am
Good to know that at least the prostitutes have the right to blow the whistle without fear of legal action.
Posted by: dj | June 28, 2006, 10:55 am 10:55 am
giving the irs 2 million to open another office is like giving heroin to a junkie. the irs is already a bureaucratic tangle where the left hand and right hand won’t even aknowledge one another. better idea is a flat tax and NO IRS period.
Posted by: Don | June 28, 2006, 10:58 am 10:58 am
Sen.Grassley almost has the key to legalizing and taxing and regulating prostitution, a smart way to handle this, but no…I don’t quite see that here. Is there hope for republicans yet? Perhaps their boy “Hush Bimbo” with his illegal prescription of viagra on his way to an illegal meeting with his favorite prostitute might address this legal or illegal way to handle prostitution, on his next radio show. Or maybe he won’t…
Posted by: frodaddy | June 28, 2006, 11:10 am 11:10 am
somehow I see this as about as competent as the FEMA folks paying $250,000.00 per month to store empty trailers on an abandoned air field. Whatabout that…….. you go Chucky boy..’stylin’ for dollars’…
Posted by: dreek | June 28, 2006, 12:30 pm 12:30 pm
What pimp is going to admit to engaging in illegal activity. I thought prostitution was still illegal in most places. Who is he kidding? Watch out Deuce
Posted by: fatho | June 28, 2006, 2:03 pm 2:03 pm
I think this is a great idea, if I have to pay taxes why shouldn’t EVERYONE else who earns money
Posted by: Vickie | June 28, 2006, 2:27 pm 2:27 pm
Hey, great idea! Next we can start cracking down on all those drug dealers that aren’t paying taxes too. Do pimps pay into their respective state workers compensation fund? We’ve elected morons.
Posted by: Dave | June 28, 2006, 2:30 pm 2:30 pm
what an idiot!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by: raj | June 28, 2006, 2:44 pm 2:44 pm
Absolutely, if you earn money, you should pay taxes.
Posted by: expat2 | June 28, 2006, 2:54 pm 2:54 pm
I think “fatho” misses the point. Of course prostitution is illegal nearly every where. This is a way of making sure sex traffickers can be punished and heavily fined even if the evidence connecting them to imported prostitutes is weak.
I think it’s a great idea. It will give the feds a lot more ammunition to go after sex slave traders, much like the RICO statutes.
Posted by: les | June 28, 2006, 2:54 pm 2:54 pm
So why not legalize prostitution, regulate it, and then tax everything about it? That’d be a nice money maker! It’s a profession that’s never going away, so might as well work with it and get some public benefit out of it!
Posted by: Raymond Munoz | June 28, 2006, 2:54 pm 2:54 pm
Am I missing something here? The pimps will have to provide the ss# and full address of the prostitutes (as well as their own) on the W2….”Oh sure, here, I’m right here at this address, come arrest me, right after I pay my tax dollars…thanks!” Pimping and prostitution may not be the brightest of career choices, but do they really think all these people are idiots??? Actually, maybe it’s a little scarier that we have Senators that are dumb enough to think this would work…..? If we’re that desperate for tax dollars, make it all legal….now THERE is a potential windfall, campers!
Posted by: JF | June 28, 2006, 2:59 pm 2:59 pm
The IRS just wants more money.
Posted by: Candy | June 28, 2006, 3:02 pm 3:02 pm
The prostitutes should be quite adept at “blowing the whistle”.
Posted by: Todd | June 28, 2006, 3:07 pm 3:07 pm
WHAT A CROCK!! HELLO! SHOULD “POT” SELLERS ALSO PURCHASE A SALES STAMP? YOU’RE GOING TO MAKE MORE AND MORE OF WE COMMON FOLK THIEVES, JUST LIKE WE HAVE IN GOVERNMENT. THE IRS GETS ENOUGH FROM US AND THIS REPUBLICAN BRAIN THING JUST WON’T FLY.
Posted by: Cheryl J. | June 28, 2006, 3:27 pm 3:27 pm
Yes, I think it is right to tax the sex pimps in this nation, however sounds like to me it is legal for sex trade in US now if this law passed.
Posted by: Joe Jao | June 28, 2006, 3:38 pm 3:38 pm
Grassley must be smoking something pretty strong to think this will work at all. Look, they’re criminals for the very reason that they are breaking existing law; to think that they’ll all of a sudden obey this new law is stupid. They’ll just keep ignoring the law, just like how keeping guns out of the hands of everyday people does nothing to limit the possession of firearms by criminals. Better idea: national legalization, state control and taxation. Then you get to reap the benefit of (a) less work for local police departments–allowing them to go after more worthy issues; and, (b) help stem the tide of HIV and AIDS.
Posted by: Phil | June 28, 2006, 3:46 pm 3:46 pm
So I guess that means George Bush would have to file W-2′s on all of the prostitutes working for him as members of the US Congress?
Posted by: Newcomb | June 28, 2006, 4:03 pm 4:03 pm
Does this mean that Congress will also be taxing themselves since they have been selling off this country to all the big corporations just like PIMPS.
Posted by: Kate | June 28, 2006, 5:02 pm 5:02 pm
It’s just a reason to further penalize pimps. They catch em for being a pimp, then charge em $50k + additional prison time for not paying their taxes. If a pimp is dumb enough to file taxes for his illegal prostitutes, well, then he’ll be investigated.
Posted by: Wang Chung | June 28, 2006, 5:18 pm 5:18 pm
The real thing: like drugs, there will always be pimps… always the sale of sex
So why do we waste so much of our tax money on investigating it, policing it and trying to stop it when it’s been around forever, and it won’t go away any time soon.
Like all things, if you legalize it and tax it, the goverment can control it…
I say thank you to Grassley for coming up with something a bit more realistic.
Posted by: d | June 28, 2006, 5:19 pm 5:19 pm
Hustle & Flow, “it’s hard out here on a pimp”, World Cup Soccer in Germany will help brothels is another story from this ABC news website. When will we grow up and stop trying to legislate adults morality? Nevada is the only sane state in the US about controlling and making taxes from Prostitution.
Posted by: Pd | June 28, 2006, 5:26 pm 5:26 pm
Children, pay attention: It is another way to (hopefully) get pimps in the slammer (where they belong). I sincerely doubt that anyone, least of all Sen Grassley, thinks any of them are going to actually file those W2s. It’s no different than the Feds nailing Al Capone for tax evasion instead of murder and racketeering.
Posted by: V | June 28, 2006, 5:42 pm 5:42 pm
Do you really believe that even though “pimps and prostitutes” are breaking the law by participating in illegal sex trade, they will all of a sudden become law abiding citizens and pay taxes? Evidently, logical thinking is not a job requirement to be a Senator.
Posted by: Latoya | June 28, 2006, 6:13 pm 6:13 pm
This isn’t about collecting taxes.. this is about setting up a mechanism by which these sleazy scumbags who take women with low self esteem and turn them out can be sent to prison for a long long time. I think it is a good Idea.
For those of you saying “go after the drug dealers next” I believe that they can already be prosecuted for tax evasion.
thnxla~
Posted by: jd | June 28, 2006, 6:25 pm 6:25 pm
Taxing these practices may backfire, and legally open the door to legalized prostitution…but then, that may be a good thing and sanitize the business.
Posted by: John W. Wittenberg | June 28, 2006, 6:26 pm 6:26 pm
Uh, Mr. Grassley; you forgot about the prisons, which are bulging now. Your proposal would require a lot of money to add more prison space, guards, etc. Why don’t these politicians think of this stuff? Oh, and let’s have some news organization interview some of the pimps; let’s see what they have to say! Should be entertaining.
Posted by: Mr. Sam | June 28, 2006, 6:31 pm 6:31 pm
All this does, ladies and gentlemen, is give the “powers that be” one more BIG charge to add to the pile when they pick these dudes (or dudettes) up and bring them before the bar of justice – - – TAX EVASION – a FEDERAL charge.
Posted by: Sky King | June 28, 2006, 7:07 pm 7:07 pm
A special IRS tax function, and a special tax focus and enforcement against pimps, and not against madams, prostitute collaborators, and free-lancer prostitutes, their customers and prostitution-associated reputable and disreputable establishments, are obviously gestural, show politics to demagogue the reviled for partisan popularity and voter points. Let any such federal law enforcement apply to all contributing parties, with a retroactive law for prosecution of clients (including politicians, government employees, lobbyists, corporate executives, business men and women, and the clergy) and establishments (including homes, country clubs and classy hotels)upon which prostitution has occurred. Since the sex trade is populated with people from the hard life, males and females alike, generally of lowly formal education and otherwise such socio-economic achievement who have found it to be a steady source of income and funding for their survival, they are unlikely to abandon the sex trade with the specter of severe federal enforcement against them. Probably there be greater annonymity and more get-what-you-can while-you-can client robbery and all-round, paranoid mutual murder in the trade with the new federal special tax focus on pimps and severe criminal penalties against them and maybe the sex trade on the whole eventually. Apart from its federal tax aspect, prostitution is and should remain a state and local law enforcement matter and should not be federalized. To date, with respect to the IRS, so long as pimps and prostitutes fully reported their income on their federal tax returns and paid their taxes, they were not subject to further federal law enforcement. Where the failed to fully report and pay, they were held to the same tax enforcement as any other delinquent taxpayers.
Posted by: thought | June 28, 2006, 7:48 pm 7:48 pm
Why not tax the millionaires? Why not tax the billionaires? If they paid the same 33% in taxes that’s killing the middle class…this country would be in a tremendous surplus. I’m sure they work less hard than either a pimp or a prostitute. And they make a lot more money to tax. Why are we afraid to tax the REAL PIMPS? The PEOPLE WHO ARE PIMPING THIS COUNTRY FOR ITS WEALTH and putting in their pockets?
Posted by: Pamela | June 28, 2006, 8:07 pm 8:07 pm
Don’t forget that funny fifth amendment deal where you can’t be forced to incriminate yourself. You can pay taxes as a criminal and plead the fifth on a tax return by refusing to disclose the source of that money. So either the proposed law is unconstitutional, or the pimps would be allowed to turn in W-2s without anyone’s name or SS # on them. Strange…
Posted by: Curiouser and curisouser | June 28, 2006, 8:10 pm 8:10 pm
Tax them all. I say. Make sure you even tax the pimps in Vegas and Atlantic City, which being a pimp is legal are some cases.
Posted by: Bill | June 28, 2006, 10:26 pm 10:26 pm
I think the senator has lost his marbles. If we want to legalize the oldest profession in mans history then fine tax them but if you think for a moment that a pimp running an illegal prostitution ring is going to file a W2 then you are smoking some of the other stuff that should be legal and taxed. Take the 2 million and help some needy people not the needy IRS. Get rid of the IRS all together and pass the flat tax, now there is a real windfall. Maybe we should elect pimps to be our senators, they seem to be smarter.
Posted by: ES | June 28, 2006, 11:31 pm 11:31 pm
the whole entire government is just corrupt and crooked. stupid laws for the rich can benefit and the poor and middle class gets poorer!!stupid, stupid, stupid as always
Posted by: mr d | June 29, 2006, 12:32 am 12:32 am
I think the point of the law is that pimps would not want to write up their W-2 forms for their prostitutes out of fear of being arrested.
When/if these pimps are caught and arrested, not only are they going to serve time for their crimes, but they will also serve time for tax evasion, which, as the article claims, would be a good 10 years per W-2 form unfiled. Thus, if a pimp were arrested for pimping 10 prostitutes, he would be in jail for 100 simply for not filing his taxes.
This is not a way to make money from illegal trafficking, but rather a method of punishing those caught.
Posted by: GL | June 29, 2006, 2:47 am 2:47 am
For the silly people who keep complaining that the rich dont pay their taxes, keep in mind that more than half of all tax money is paid by the richest 1% of America.
Base tax rates for “middle class”, which I will assume will be between (30,650-74,200) pays 25% tax, while tax rates for “upper class” (336,550+) is 35% tax. In real numbers, lets take two examples, a middle class joe that makes $50,000 a year, and a millionaire that makes a million a year ($1,000,000).
The middle class man pays $12,500, about enough for a car; the millionare pays 350,000, which is 7 times as much as the middle class joe’s income. Also, keep in mind that nearly everyone who works deserves the wage they earn. Few people are “born” into wealth.
Posted by: GL | June 29, 2006, 3:03 am 3:03 am
Perhaps we should offer the pimps and prostitutes amnesty instead.
All they want to do is work and support their families. So what if they’ve broken the law. So what if the wages they make aren’t taxed. They’re spending money in our communities which helps our economy.
I got it! We could just have them register with the states they’re operating in, give them a slap on the wrist and a token fine, and then put them on a path to legal prostitution.
Crazy, ain’t it?
Posted by: Will | June 29, 2006, 11:00 am 11:00 am
Typical election year grandstanding. I hope his constituents run this windbag out of office and replace him with a sane replacement. You want to make money from prostitution? Legalize it. Visit Amsterdam and see the patrolled, video-surveilled Red Light district that licenses and examines women for diseases. Of course that’ll never fly in the good old Puritan (in word only) USA.
Posted by: Charlie | June 29, 2006, 2:39 pm 2:39 pm