New York Lap Dance Tax: 'Nite Moves' Strip Club Owes $124K

Nite Moves strip club in Albany is not exempted from taxes for lap dancers. In a 4-3 decision, the New York State Court of Appeals made the decision that lap dances didn't qualify for exemptions for "dramatic or musical arts performances."

Judges Carmen Beauchamp Ciparick, Victoria Graffeo, Eugene Pigott Jr. and Theodore Jones Jr. agreed that, "A club presenting performances of women gyrating on a pole to music, however artistic or athletic their practiced moves are, was also not a qualifying performance."

According to court documents, the business owed more than $124,000 in taxes. Judge Robert S. Smith wrote, "The people who paid these admission charges paid to see women dancing," Smith added. "It does not matter if the dance was artistic or crude, boring or erotic. Under New York's Tax Law, a dance is a dance."

Even though, Smith finds the sexual business distasteful, he also doesn't want to see adult magazines being taxed differently than any other magazine.

"That sort of discrimination on basis of content would surely be unconstitutional," he wrote. "It is not clear to me why the discrimination that the majority approves in this case stands on any firmer constitutional footing."