from www.guardian.co.uk – Sex workers in Amsterdam can expect an unwelcome visit from the taxman this year following a warning from the Dutch government.

Workers in Amsterdam’s famed red light district have received a notice from the tax service addressed to: “Landlords and window prostitutes in Amsterdam.” The notice was published last week in the city’s Het Parool newspaper.

“Agents of the Tax Service will walk through various elements of your business administration with you, such as prices, staffing, agendas and calendars,” the notice said. “The facts will be used at a later date in reviewing your returns.”

Although prostitution was legalised a decade ago, the tax service has been lenient towards sex workers as they have viewed them largely as victims of traffickers and pimps. From this year, however, they will be treated like any other business and expected to pay tax.

“We began at the larger places, the brothels, so now we’re moving on to the window landlords and ‘the ladies,'” said Janneke Verheggen, the Tax Service spokeswoman.

The move is receiving mixed responses from those in the city’s lucrative sex industry. “It’s a job like any other and we should pay taxes,” Samantha, one of the many women who work behind the red-curtained windows in Amsterdam, told AP.

Whereas Mariska Majoor, a former sex worker, summarised the thoughts of some workers as follows: “Their attitude is, we are stigmatised, made to feel that we are not part of society, we have trouble getting a bank account – why should we pay taxes?”

The Netherlands is cutting spending and raising taxes to help balance its budget by 2015. Although the government will not make up the deficit by focusing on sex workers alone, the industry has traditionally gone almost entirely untaxed.

The Central Bureau of Statistics estimates that prostitution generates £550m per year. Under Dutch law, prostitutes should be charging 19% sales tax on each transaction.

A study in October estimated slightly fewer than 8,000 prostitutes in the city, with around 3,000 working behind windows. It is also estimated 40% of window prostitutes already pay some income tax.