 |
| Tax-man gets screwed | |
Canberra's Communist
Times has a little snippet about a landlord being put on trial for
demanding sex from his female tenants. The enterprising American demanded
sex once a week from a woman who wanted to rent a house from him. Oh the outrage! Especially since many of his female tenants were on low
incomes and and desperate to find housing. Generally sex seems to numb the brain, but a little rational thought wouldn't
go astray here. Was the randy landlord asking the market rate for rent,
and then sex as well? If that were the case, then why wouldn't the
women just buy their accommodation from elsewhere? Perhaps they enjoyed the
weekly carnality as much as their oversexed landlord? If the man was offering a
discounted rent in exchange for the sex, then he is really just asking
the women to become part-time hookers to help pay the
bills - they can refuse, and pay market price elsewhere, or accept his offer of
part-time employment. So
then the question becomes is how much of discount was he offering? Was
it more or less than the cost of a local hooker? Those of us with no
experience in such matters are forced to theorize at this point, but the US
street price is probably around $US50.00 a pop. So if the discount was more
than $50.00 he is effectively offering them rent at below the market rate -
which hardly makes the women
victims. If he is offering
less than $50.00 discount, the women would have been better off peddling their
wares on the nearest street corner, and keeping the excess. This doesn't make
him a criminal - just another
hard-up guy looking for a bargain. So why prosecute a man who is merely trying to get prostitution off the
streets? No-one here was forced into anything they could not have just walked
away from. Well not quite. The Department of Justice has brought a civil
trial against them man, but Prosecutors said Koch, who owned or managed about 50 rental
properties in the Omaha area, also entered women's homes without notice and stole things if they rejected
his advances. So the man is a trespasser and a thief - but instead of charging him with
forcibly violating someone's home and property, the Justice Department charges
him with offering voluntary and consensual trade. Omaha Justice is not just blind -
it's stupid. Probably the real concern for the authorities is that he is avoiding tax. If he were to take the rent
as cash, and then spend it on a local hooker, he (and possibly even she) would
have to pay income tax (and maybe sales tax) on the transactions. In making a
snug little arrangement he is cutting the tax-man out of the
transaction. That's why he can give a discount less that the market price of a
hooker, and have both of them come out smiling.
| 
