We Did It All For The Nookie

The Texas House recently passed legislation requiring a $5 dollar tax on strip club cover. The author – State Rep. Ellen Cohen – said it was a fee, but we all know that this is a tax and a “sin tax” at that. 

The great thing about sin taxes is that when those affected complain, no one cares. It’s a great way to raise money without effecting your voter base. And if you send the money to the right program – this revenue stream would go to sexual assault programs – you might even grow your voter base.

The bill is HB 1751. I’m not sure why strip clubs were targeted. I assume the author and co-authors think there is some correlation between titty bars and sexual assault, but what puzzles me is how they figure such a fee will raise $18 million. According to the fical note, this was their methodology:

The Comptroller of Public Accounts estimated the fiscal impact based on establishment data, relating to those entities that would qualify under the provision of the bill, provided by the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission (TABC). The estimate includes an adjustment to the establishment count to account for such entities not licensed by TABC [Those would be the totally nude clubs which the state prohibited from selling alcohol]. The estimate assumes that the $5 admissions charge required under the provisions of the bill, would have a negative effect on the sale of alcoholic beverages in those establishments licensed by TABC, which would result in a loss of revenue from the mixed beverage tax to the state and local units of government. The estimate for the fiscal 2008 includes an adjustment for the effective date, the quarterly reporting requirement, and employer collection and compliance considerations.

Alright, so it’s based on how many sexually oriented businesses there are, but do they know how much traffic those businesses get per month or year? It never ceases to amaze me the people just don’t question this stuff. Is this really going to generate the funds it says it will?

There is a similar bill in the Senate – SB 1717 – by Sen. Royce West. It also imposes a $5 fee on admission, but it also requires strip clubs to register anally (I mean, annually), and the registration fee would cost $5000. It would also require strip clubs to publish a notice in a local paper 60 days before applying for the registration, which likely means that when the local fundies find out it’s going up, they’ll raise hell and get it stopped.

Since we actually know how many strip clubs there are in Texas, we can find out how much this registration fee would generate. According to the Ultimate Strip Club List, there are 227 strip clubs in the state. So, at $5000/year, you get a grand total of $1,135,000. They’ll need the sin tax to even possibly bring this up to the target revenue. Brilliant.

This was a bad idea when Rick Perry proposed it for education a couple of years ago, and it’s a bad idea now. But since it’s for sexual assault programs, it seems ok.