Thursday, 21 May 2009

A taxing experience


The usual story of boy meets girl, Romanian student needs €60.000 to pay for her college tuition, a computer studies course in Germany, and decides to sell her virginity on line to the highest bidder in order to raise the cash.

After the initial setback of the advert being pulled, not for any moral issue regarding selling sex but beacause her old school teacher announced she is not a virgin (no mention of exactly how he should know this) the advert went back up and an Italian won with a bid of €10.000.
Not exactly what she, Alina, was targeting but still a reasonable sum, enough to buy 3.268 big macs in the Euro area according to the famous Big Mac index.

Now the problem, under German law selling sex or prostitution is perfectly legal, even on a student visa, however there is a special 50% tax rate levied, also she could be liable for sales tax currently at 19% and the German inland revenue are obviously anxious not to miss a trick...no pun intended.

Therefore from Alina´s initial €60.000 target she received €10.000 which will be reduced by €5.000 prostitution tax and possibly €1.900 sales tax leaving her with €3.100 for her labours.

Interesting that a Romanian girl has sex in Italy and pays 70% of it to the German government, you have to take your hat off to this kind of legislation.

Perhaps more relevant is that selling sex is illegal in Italy since 2008 although they seem to have a reasonably relaxed attitude on the issue, a top down culture one would imagine.
Less relaxed is the Italian taxation system which on these values charges 25%, if cumulative the poor girl could pay another €2.500 leaving her with a paltry €600 to remember the weekend by.

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