While travelling in a taxi this weekend, I endured an unusually talkative driver yapping on his mobile phone about a celebratory dinner he was planning. It was a special day because he had paid off his credit card debt, after more than five years.
Without paying the least attention to the presence of my family - with two small children - he confessed to the person at the other end of the line that he had incurred massive credit card debts by using the plastic too many times at 'nightclubs and saunas'.
As a taxpayer, I found it sad that his money had gone straight to the banks, the card companies, vice establishments and almost certainly triad groups, without much of it going into the public coffers.
Just imagine - if sex clients had to pay a goods and services tax, prostitutes a salaries tax, and legalised brothels a corporate or profits tax - how much revenue that would create.
Many ideas have been put forward about the proposed GST and the need to broaden the tax base. I am surprised no one has taken advantage of this government consultation period to reintroduce the idea of legalising prostitution.
Since the clientele includes young and old, men and increasingly more women, wealthy people and those from humble backgrounds, a levy would help broaden the tax base.