The taxman is homing in on Amsterdam's thriving sex industry, warning the city's prostitutes it is time they paid their share.

The country legalised the practice a decade ago, but it is only now getting around to looking at the sex workers who advertise themselves in shop windows in Amsterdam's red-light district.

'We began at the larger places, the brothels, so now we're moving on to the window landlords and the ladies,' said a spokeswoman for the country's tax service.

The move is meeting little opposition, even among prostitutes - though some are skeptical it can be enforced.

Prostitution has flourished in the city since the 1600s, when the country was a major naval power and sailors arrived at the port looking for a good time.

Prostitutes were told they would be audited in typically bureaucratic fashion, with a notice addressed to: ' landlords and window prostitutes in Amsterdam' published last week in the city's main newspaper.

Although the Dutch state is not going to make a fortune just by squeezing the vice girls, the sex trade is a serious industry that went almost entirely untaxed.

The Central Bureau of Statistics estimates prostitution generates ￡550 million a year. Under Dutch law, girls should be charging 19 per cent sales tax on each transaction.

Profits are personal income, taxed at anywhere from 33 per cent for someone making less than ￡15,000 a year to 52 per cent for people making more than ￡45,000.

A study in October estimated there are slightly fewer than 8,000 prostitutes and 3,000 working behind windows.

(Read by Lee Hannon. Lee Hannon is a journalist at the China Daily Website.)

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(Agencies)