Lap Dances Constitute Theater? For Tax-Purposes, Yes

Wednesday, 24 July 2013 | by Pat's Picks

Does a lap dance count as theater? That’s what the lawyers for three “gentleman’s clubs” are claiming, says the Philadelphia Inquirer, as a way to get around a new city law that would tax the income earned from lap dances. Philly businesses are exempt from paying the “amusement tax” if they offer “legitimate contemporary American theater.” To prove their point, the lawyers hired a Yale-educated expert to argue that the women she saw at Club Risque, Cheerleaders, and Delilah’s were “dancers creating characters, displaying technical virtuosity…much like a ballet dancer on point shoes.”

SOURCE: Philadelphia Inquirer