An Immodest Proposal: Time for a Sex Tax

Photo: Michael Karshis

Whereby:

+ It has been observed that Democrats are generally in favor of taxation and Republicans are generally opposed to unnecessary sexual activity; and whereby:

+ The unintended costs of sexual activity are unacceptably high, particularly in the political arena (c.f. Messrs. Clinton, Foley, Craig, Edwards, and most recently one Mr. Levi Johnston, to name just a fraction of the available examples); and whereby:

+ The pursuit of sex is also extremely costly beyond the political realm, in terms of lost productivity, unwanted pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases, and ruined marriages (and other committed relationships); and whereby:

+ The federal government is now, as always, in need of more money;

It is hereby proposed that a new “sex tax” shall be levied upon the citizens of these United States.

Let it be clear that the aim of said tax is not to deter sexual activity itself, but rather to capture some of the costs imposed by certain extraneous sexual activity that, especially once made public, tends to divert precious resources from more worthy subjects; to this end:

+ Married couples will receive a substantial credit for sanctioned, in-home sexual activity; and, conversely:

+ The highest rates shall be paid for premarital, extramarital, and otherwise unusual or undesirable sexual activity; and:

+ Sexual activity between members of the same gender; or activity between more than two participants; or in an airplane, on a beach, or in other “nontraditional” settings shall surely be taxed at a higher, though heretofore undetermined, rate. Also to be determined is a scale for noncoital activity.

The Internal Revenue Service shall be granted the full and complete authority to collect said tax. Furthermore:

+ Payment of said tax, while voluntary, is no more voluntary than payments or credits on other tax-related activities such as: charitable contributions, business-related deductions, and cash received for goods and services, and is therefore expected to stimulate a very acceptable rate of compliance; additionally:

+ Taxpayers will create a sexual paper trail that could prove advantageous in countless future scenarios, including but not limited to: employment, courtship, and participation in the political process; and:

+ The typical I.R.S. audit would become considerably more interesting for the auditor, and interesting work is a much-needed incentive to attract and retain qualified I.R.S. employees.

It should be acknowledged that determining an acceptable name for said tax may be politically difficult, much like the “estate tax” and the “death tax” are in fact nomenclaturally diverse versions of the same tax used by opposing parties; candidates to consider include: the Family Creation Tax; the Extracurricular Intercourse and Lesser Sex Act Tax; and the Shtup Tax.

Furthermore:

+ This is not the first time such a tax has been proposed in America; in 1971, a Democratic legislator from Providence, R.I., named Bernard Gladstone proposed such a measure in his state; he called it “the one tax that would probably be overpaid,” but sadly, the measure was promptly rejected as being in “bad taste,” a position with which we summarily disagree; and whereby:

+ A similar tax does have a historical (if fictional) precedence in the writings of one Jonathan Swift, who in his acclaimed work Gulliver’s Travels noted that in a place called Laputa, “The highest tax was upon men who are the greatest favourites of the other sex, and the assessments according to the number and natures of the favors they have received; for which they are allowed to be their own vouchers.” And finally:

+ It is unclear why both Swift and Gladstone proposed that the tax be levied solely upon males but, in light of recent and less-than-recent news events, they were probably 100 percent correct to have done so.