Kansas- Revenue officials in Buffalo, N.Y., recently sought to collect sales tax on lap dances.

In Congress, a bill has been introduced that would require a 25 percent tax on all pornographic material sold on the Internet.

Bills to tax X-rated adult material and strip clubs have been introduced in at least six states, including Kansas and Missouri. A law passed two years ago in Utah is tied up in the courts.

In many parts of the country, politicians are turning up the heat on the adult entertainment industry whose products are becoming ever more pervasive, especially through the Internet. Many see raising taxes as a way to curb that pervasiveness.

Although efforts to tax adult entertainment businesses have largely been unsuccessful, supporters say new efforts are planned for next year.

Officials in the adult entertainment industry say they can’t remember a time when the threat from government has been so great.

Angelina Spencer, executive director of the Association of Club Executives, which represents adult entertainment clubs, said some efforts are simply aimed at raising more revenue while others are trying to drive adult businesses out of business through heavy taxation.

Phillip Cosby of the Kansas City office of the National Coalition for the Protection of Children and Families said greater public awareness of sexual predators is fueling interest in anti-pornography efforts.

“Two out of three people who took part in a recent Wichita poll said the adult entertainment industry should be taxed at a higher level,” Cosby said. “It has popular support and bipartisan support.”

Bills introduced in Kansas and Missouri have failed to pass, but supporters are determined to take a new approach when lawmakers in both states reconvene next month.

State Rep. Lance Kinzer, an Olathe Republican, said a bill will be introduced in Kansas next year that would establish a special occupation license for adult-oriented businesses such as strip clubs and X-rated video stores. The license would be separate from occupational licenses paid by other businesses.

A similar effort is planned in Missouri.

“That’s exactly the direction we’re going,” said state Sen. Matt Bartle, a Lee’s Summit Republican. “We’re going to empower local governments to come up with a licensing fee that bears some relationship with the costs associated with regulating these smut shops.”

Kinzer and Bartle know they will be in for a fight.

Kinzer said any bill will have to be carefully worded because it will be challenged by adult entertainment businesses. “All these approaches are fraught with legal technicalities,” he said.

Bartle knows all about those technicalities.

Earlier this year, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a Missouri law that would have regulated billboards by sexually-oriented businesses. The court ruled that the law infringed on the businesses’ First Amendment right to free expression. Bartle said he will introduce another billboard bill next year because the court provided guidance on how to fix the law.

“When you are trying to regulate smut shops, you understand that the legislative work is only step one and then after that, you’re going to have to battle in court,” he said.

Cosby, Bartle and Kinzer said they think there is a cause-and-effect relationship between pornography and sex crimes that gives states a compelling interest to tax adult entertainment differently than other businesses. It is the same reason, they say, that liquor is taxed differently than milk.

Diane Duke, the executive director of the Free Speech Coalition, does not see the analogy between taxing the liquor industry and taxing adult businesses.

“In our case, you’re taxing free speech,” she said. “That’s where a big line needs to be drawn.”

Spencer said that closing all the strip clubs in Missouri would not stop sexual predators or reduce crime or prostitution because there is no relationship.

Spencer does, however, see a positive side to taxing adult entertainment, a statement that often results in startled looks from members of her association.

“Of course they don’t want to be taxed,” she said. “But sometimes there’s good in that. By taxing you, they are giving you added legitimacy.”