Photo : Michel Angelo EW / Flickr

Legalizing prostitution may not be easy

Although widespread in Romania and a staple of the country’s economy, prostitution remains illegal there. Its legalisation, currently contemplated by the authorities, might cause some unanticipated quandaries, observes Evenimentul Zilei.

Published on 29 October 2009 at 18:08
Photo : Michel Angelo EW / Flickr

It’s dusk. Karolina, a good-looking 32-year-old German, is getting ready for work. Made-up, perfumed and scantily clad, she is going to put in a few hours of “lucrative labour” in her Berlin flat, with its erotically-tinged décor. She is one of 450,000-odd prostitutes currently plying their trade in Germany.

Karolina is a freelancer, what we could call a “licensed physical person” in Romanian fiscalese. But she pays her income and turnover taxes on time, along with membership dues to her professional guild. Not only that, Karolina even pays church tax and health insurance contributions.

“I don’t have any more than two or three customers a night and ten appointments a week. I pay roughly 60% of my income to the taxman and other institutions. I get a write-off for supplies,” she adds with a smile. Judging from her tax returns, she presumably takes in between €15,000 and €20,000 a month.

A few regulars once or twice a week

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An hour’s time difference away, over in Bucharest, the set-up is pretty much the same – except that it is illegal. Dani is 21 years old and a second-year student in a “liberal arts college”. She lives with her flatmate, Andreea, on the south side of the capital. Nobody would ever guess that this tidy, elegant apartment, for which they pay €300 monthly rent, is actually a den of iniquity. “We confine ourselves to a few regulars who come round once or twice a week,” explains Dani. To fool the neighbours, “We ask them to stop the lift one floor above or below ours and walk right in without ringing.” They show no interest in the current push to legalise prostitution. “That’s all we need! To have it say ‘whore’ on our business cards. Maybe even on our qualifications, too,” guffaws the brunette as if at a good joke.

The gals in Romania get by more or less like their experienced counterparts in Germany. But over there, it is legal, they pay taxes. In these parts it’s against the law and everyone seems to be content with the status quo: the girls for not having to pay taxes, the authorities for not having to quell any controversy on this score, and civil society for not having to upset its applecart of blatant hypocrisy.

Communism got rid of brothels

Legalising prostitution would cause a host of bureaucratic problems, some of which are so hilarious that no-one even seems to have given them any thought. “Those who’d want to tax prostitutes would have to be able to verify the source of their income. Which would mean invoices and receipts!” points out sociologist Alfred Bulai. What is more, after decades of Communism, Romania no longer has an official administrative framework that could accommodate sex workers. For prostitution to be legal in Romania, it would have to be a registered profession and added to one of the 45 existing categories of economic activity. Certain requirements would have to be met for inclusion in the “Classification of Occupations” (COR): “A description of the occupation, responsibilities, tools of the trade, working hours, occupational hazards, career advancement prospects.”

Lawful practitioners would face another quandary: how best to declare their takings? “They have only three options: as salaried employees, as ‘licensed physical persons’ – like taxi drivers, for example – or as members of a ‘family association’ along with parents in the business,” explains a certified accountant.

The new penal code (effective from January 2010) does not exactly legalise prostitution. “It only changes the type of offence,” police officials explain. “It won’t be a criminal offence any more, but a minor offence punishable by a fine.” Fiscal experts, moreover, do not believe legalising prostitution and taxing its practitioners will significantly swell the public coffers anyway.

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