This project explores the under-studied and under-theorized nexus between taxation and prostitution, and sheds light on the role of fiscal policies in shaping the relationship between the state and sex workers. Drawing on critical fiscal studies, we explore taxation as a social practice which has a key role in shaping the citizenship status of those who operate in the sex industry. Their political, economic and social inclusion/exclusion are influenced by fiscal policies which need to be looked at in the context of the governance of prostitution. The project will explore these dynamics by comparing three European countries which vary in prostitution and fiscal policies: Italy, Portugal and Switzerland. We will investigate laws, policies, jurisprudence, criminal justice measures and practical fiscal arrangements that address the taxation of prostitution in the three countries, as well as political and public debates around these issues and their media representation, where at all present. Moreover, we are particularly concerned with how these legal measures are experienced by those whom they target. Drawing on the concept of legal consciousness the researchers will employ biographical interview methods to explore how prostitution taxation and their socio-cultural implications are understood, negotiated and responded to by sex workers.

The novelty of this project resides in its analysis of an under-studied aspect of the governance of prostitution, thus enriching both fiscal and prostitution studies, as well as the broader fields of sociology of law, economic sociology, policy and socio-legal studies, criminology, and political science.

Through its outputs, which include two academic articles, a think piece for The Conversation, and the organisation of a workshop, the project will develop the limited body of knowledge on the taxation of prostitution and stimulate policy-relevant debates that are aimed at better informed policy-making in this field.