For operators of live adult entertainment facilities in Illinois

The wrong method can cost a hundred thousand dollars.

Handstamp keeps the nightly door count — people admitted and how repeats were checked — and each month’s taxable receipts from Form ST-1, then works the Illinois surcharge both ways: $3 a person admitted, or the receipts tier. It names the cheaper method the law allows, what the other would cost, and whether it goes on LA-1 or LA-2.

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Opens in this browser with three invented facilities already in it. No account, no email address, nothing installed.

Handstamp with its example records in it

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The problem

Two methods, chosen once, and no changing it.

Illinois facilities that serve alcohol and offer nude or partly nude entertainment owe a yearly surcharge on Form LA-1 by January 20. The admissions method is $3 a person and needs an accurate record of every day’s admissions. The receipts method is a tier on the year’s taxable sales. A busy club on the wrong one overpays; a club on admissions with no daily record has nothing for the auditor.

per person admitted under the admissions method, with an accurate record of daily admissions.

Illinois Department of Revenue →

January 20

the date Form LA-1 is due, for the calendar year before.

Illinois Department of Revenue →

$5,000–$25,000

the receipts tiers, by the year’s taxable receipts.

Will not mark a return filed that is not ready.

Not a reminder. Filed refuses, with the reason named, while the year is still running, the admissions method has a night uncounted or with no hand stamp or card noted, the receipts method is missing a month or not yet allowed, or the confirmation number is missing. There is no override.

How it works

Facilities, door, receipts, return

Set each facility

Its FEIN and the first month of its sales-tax returns, which decides whether the receipts method is open.

Count the door

Every open night: people admitted, counted once a day from 8:00 a.m., and how repeats were checked.

Build the return

Both methods per FEIN, the cheaper allowed one, LA-1 or LA-2, and the total. File it on MyTax Illinois.

What it will never do

It works out the surcharge. MyTax Illinois takes it.

Handstamp files nothing. You file on MyTax Illinois and write down the confirmation.

No filing.Nothing goes to Illinois. Handstamp prints the return.

No door counter.You count the door; Handstamp keeps the count.

It is not an accountant.A question on method goes to yours before January 20.

It never touches a payment.The subscription is for software.

Pricing

Priced per facility

A rounding error on the difference between the two methods.

Most clubs

One facility

$15/month

One Illinois facility.

Nightly door count
Both methods worked
Filing gate, no override

One facility, yearly

$180/year

The same, paid once.

Everything in One facility
LA-2 for several under one FEIN
Export for your accountant

Subscription. Your bank statement says Handstamp Software. Refunded in full on request within 30 days. Your licence key is emailed to you within two working days of payment.

Checkout is our own bitcoin server, not a card processor — nobody we had to apply to and nobody who can close the account. The button takes you straight to it. Give your email address there — that is where your key is sent.

Questions

The ones we actually get asked

Can we choose either method?

Only with a full calendar year of sales-tax returns. Without one, admissions is required. Handstamp works out which is open.

How is a patron counted?

Once a day, the day starting at 8:00 a.m. A hand stamp or admission card proves who was already in.

Several clubs under one FEIN?

They file one return with Form LA-2. Handstamp groups them.

Is this tax advice?

No. It is the arithmetic, both ways, before the method is locked in.

What do I actually get when I pay?

The demo on this page is the whole program, running on invented records. Paying gets you a licence key — one line of text, emailed to the address you give at checkout within two working days. Paste it into the program and from then on it keeps your own records. Until then, nothing you type into it is kept.

The key is checked inside the page, on your own machine. It never calls us, so there is still no account and nothing about your business goes anywhere. If you ever stop paying, your records stay exactly where they are, read-only, and Export still hands you every one of them.

Open the demo before January 20

Two invented facilities under one FEIN save almost $100,000 on the receipts method. A newer one is forced onto admissions, with four nights uncounted, one unproved, and last year still unfiled. Handstamp shows every one.

Open the demo See pricing