NORWAY — The owners of the Diamond Go Go Bar in Olso have done what few have managed to do — they fought the tax man and won.Although Norway waives its valued-added tax (VAT) for performers, including sword-swallowers and comics, it has forced strippers and those who hire them to pay the tax, somehow concluding that erotic dance is not a form of art.

The attorneys for Diamond Go Go Bar explained that the club owners and its Terpsichorean performers disagreed. Instead, they contended that the strip tease is, indeed, an art form that requires skill and its practitioners deserve the same respect and tax breaks as other creative artists and performers.

Amazingly enough, the Norwegian court agreed.

“Striptease, in the way it is practiced in this case, is a form of dance combined with acting,” the judges ruled, according to the AFP news agency.

Reuters quoted one of the plaintiff’s attorneys as saying that, “One can suspect there were moral scruples behind the tax authorities’ claim, since all forms of stage dance are free of value-added tax.”

Fortunately for Diamond Go Go Bar, the local authorities that took it to court in order to force it to pay the 25% tax won’t be able to use their “moral scruples” in order to line their governmental coffers anymore.

Instead, the court — which sustained a May 2005 verdict — ordered the government to pay the club’s court costs.