In an effort to make up some $160,000 a Kansas business owner did not pay in taxes, the state government has elected to auction off his inventory. And since the business in question was a purveyor of sex toys and porn, that means Kansas is now part of the adult entertainment industry.
The items, which range from DVDs and drinking games to lingerie and vibrators, will be auctioned off online in 400 lots of dozens of items each. "What is different is the titillation factor of what we're selling. This is an unusual lot of items," said Jeannine Koranda, a representative of the Kansas revenue department and master of understatement.
A spokesperson for the office of Kansas' conservative Republican Gov. Sam Brownback defended the auction as normal procedure: "While we do not agree with the type of business involved here, it was nonetheless a legal business that was closed due to failure to pay taxes. The state cannot legally destroy the property. Returning the property to the owner would have rewarded the business that violated state tax law. This is the same process used by previous administrations."
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