Welcome to ASFN Fan Forums! We're glad to have you here. Please feel free to browse the forum. We'd like to invite you to join our community; doing so will enable you to view additional forums and post with our other members.
Registered Members don't see these ads. Register now it's free!
Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa is hoping to stamp out the sex trade
This report shows several things.
First, yes there are folks out there with an agenda and it's an incremental one. The idea is to stamp out what they consider imoral.
Second lets masacarde this as something else and the usual one is to throw 'protection of children'. Not that that's a bad thing it's just that is not the point here. Stopping prostitution is, not that this has any chance of succeeding.
Quote:
NEW YORK (CNN) -- Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa is hoping to stamp out the sex trade by taxing pimps and prostitutes, then jailing them when they don't pay.
The Senate Finance Committee is expected to vote Wednesday morning on the pimp tax. The bill also calls for more jail time for sex workers.
If passed, the provision will authorize at least $2 million toward the establishment of an office in the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation unit to prosecute unlawful sex workers for violations of tax laws.
"Recent headlines have focused on sex trafficking in connection with the World Cup in Germany," Grassley said. "This vile crime is under our noses in the United States, and it's a no-brainer to have the IRS go after sex traffickers. Prosecuting these tax code violations can get these guys off the street and yank from their grasp the girls and women they exploit." Grassley said the problem is "especially horrible" when underage girls are involved.
Asked if taxing sex workers would legitimize their trade, a Grassley spokesman said the goal was simply to find "yet another alternative to track the money flowing in this industry to get at potential criminals."
Currently, the IRS has to prove a prostitute's or pimp's income to pursue a tax law violation. But under Grassley's proposal, a pimp could get up to 10 years in prison for each prostitute for whom the pimp hasn't filed a W-2, which means a pimp caught with 10 unregistered prostitutes faces a century in prison.
Carol Leigh, a representative of the Bay Area Sex Worker Advocacy Network in San Francisco, California, called the proposal short-sighted.
"Forced labor, kidnapping should be targeted. But this legislation broadly targets the sex trade in general, and could target your local strip club," Leigh said. "We want laws enforced against those who abuse us, against those who are violent, and enforcement of labor regulations. That is the only truly effective way to protect the welfare of the women who work in the industry."
Registered Members don't see these ads. Register now it's free!
Trafficking of women is an enormous problem worldwide and I definitely agree that we need to do something about it, but I don't think taxing illegal activities is the brightest idea I've ever heard on this topic.
I'm sure we could find enough good souls on this board who would be willing to adopt the 18+ year old girls and give them a good home. After all, we wouldn't want them to be wandering the streets at night and get into trouble just because all their pimps were in jail.
__________________
“So I became a newspaperman. I hated to do it but I couldn’t find honest employment.” —Mark Twain
Trafficking of women is an enormous problem worldwide and I definitely agree that we need to do something about it, but I don't think taxing illegal activities is the brightest idea I've ever heard on this topic.
Kinda like making pot legal and taxing it....
__________________
The greatest lies are told before a marriage, after a hunt and during an election - Count Bismark
Trafficking of women is an enormous problem worldwide and I definitely agree that we need to do something about it, but I don't think taxing illegal activities is the brightest idea I've ever heard on this topic.
My thoughts exactly. How can we tax illegal activities? It's like saying "you're not allowed to do this, but, if you do, we're gonna collect taxes." Moronic.
__________________
Paul Calvisi: How about you, Gerald Hayes. If you had to call a travel agent and go to one place in the world, where would it be?
Trafficking of women is an enormous problem worldwide and I definitely agree that we need to do something about it, but I don't think taxing illegal activities is the brightest idea I've ever heard on this topic.
It's been done before. Years ago they enacted a drug stamp that was required to sell drugs, including illegal drugs. The idea wasn't that drug dealers would buy the stamps and get caught, the idea was when they busted a dealer, they could not only charge them with traficking, they can charge them with tax evasion.
It's just an incremental step in the legislate our morals
I have always had a problem with this statement. Laws are moral. Are they not? We never intend to ever legislate and come up with laws that are immoral.
Now, you might disagree with what is moral and what immoral or even amoral. But, laws should reflect what a society deems as being moral.
Society should decide what the moral standards are. We vote to put people in positions that are to reflect that morality. Nothing wrong with it.
__________________
The greatest lies are told before a marriage, after a hunt and during an election - Count Bismark
Linear Mode
