NY Top Court Says Lap Dance Isn't Art, Is Taxable

[happyslug]

27. Yes, is private lap dancing more like a Wrestling then a ballet???

Football, Hockey, Basketball, Baseball, boxing, Wrestling, etc are two sets of people who are interacting with each other in a unrehearsed "dance". If you define "Dance" as something physical people do as their interact together on a stage.

If you go to a Football, Hockey, Basketball, or baseball game, you have to pay tax on the food and drink you buy to watch the team members interact. If you go to a Boxing match or a Wrestling tournament you are watching two or more people interact (in the case of "Professional" Wrestling it is clearly pre-planed just like a ballet). The problem is when it comes to professional sports (Including Wrestling) the food and drink are clearly taxable. The tax code provides a narrow exception when it comes to dances on a stage. The Court held that the lap dance providers failed to show how they are more like a Ballet then Wrestling and that being the case the Tax Tribunal was correct in denying them the exemption from the sales tax on Food and Drink.

The dissent are more concerned about various US Supreme Court Decisions holding that one can not pass a rule against a legal business just because you dislike it (i.e. one can not zone out exotic dance clubs while permitting restaurants in the same area). The problem with that line of cases is that the ban was General not an exception to a general ban. Here we have a General rule, Drinks and food will be subject to the Sales Tax but then that general rule has an exception, that exception being for Dances. What is a dance under the Rule? What the Court has permitted, that is Ballets and other STAGE or rehearsed productions. What has NOT been covered by the Exceptions? Wrestling and other sporting events, even when it is pre-rehearsed and performed on a "Stage".

Sorry, this is enough of a narrow exception to a general rule for the Federal Courts to accept. Does it ban lap dances, no, it only requires that any drink or food sold be subject to a sales tax, the same sales tax any other activity has to pay, except for the narrow exceptions of Dances. The tax Tribunal ruled that lap dances are NOT dances as that term is used in the exception to the General rule that taxes must be paid.