Tax - a word that strikes fear into the hearts of sex workers everywhere!

It’s a two-edged sword – if you don’t pay tax you live with the fear of the tax department coming down on you and it’s hard to use your hard-earned cash for things that will set you up in the future (like buying a house, investing in shares, superannuation etc.)  

If you do pay tax, and tell the truth about what sort of work you are doing, you set up a government record that could identify you as a sex worker later.  Generally speaking ATO information is pretty safe but who knows who works in the bowels of the tax department and could have access to your records?

So that you can make an informed choice about which way to go with tax we’ve provided some FAQs and links to helpful information from the Australian Taxation Office.

Frequently asked questions about paying tax as a sex worker – there’s a lot of myths and stories out there J 

Australian Taxation Office staff have done this in the past when the ATO identified the adult industry as one area where a lot of tax wasn’t being paid and they set up an Adult Industry Task Force to crack down on the industry.

This task force doesn’t exist anymore. These days the ATO has an attitude that if they take an education approach people will pay their tax.  To this end, Scarlet Alliance (and through them, Crimson Coalition) has been working with the ATO over the past year to produce information factsheets for sex workers. The 'Adult Industry Liaison' people we are talking to at the Tax office say that they are not phoning private workers and that if they did they would identify themselves as tax officers.

Our advice?  Just play it safe, don't answer any questions you don't feel comfortable with, no one needs to know how long you've been working so if someone rings and asks you just fob them off.  If the person says they are a tax officer, ask them for a contact number to ring them back on, contact us and we will try to verify who they are. 

To avoid this you could put a different occupation – like “performance artist” or “therapist – complementary health” – its not technically legal but in our dealings with the Tax Office we’ve gotten the impression that they are more interested in people paying their tax than they are about the occupation that’s put down.