The Naked Taxpayer. When the Tax Authorities Come to OnlyFans
OnlyFans creators around the world are discovering a painful truth: nothing on the internet ever disappears, and tax authorities have zero sense of humour about undeclared income. The taxman is not shy about browsing OnlyFans, analysing transactions and tracing payment flows. Over the past three years, audits and proceedings targeting online earnings have reached creators from Florida through Ireland to Cyprus, and the Polish tax administration is already receiving creator data directly from the platforms. The era of anonymous online income is definitively over; digital erotica has become a gold mine for tax authorities.
OnlyFans is a British digital platform that became a global phenomenon of the creator economy in less than a decade. Launched in London in November 2016 by Tim Stokely together with his brother Thomas, with a £10,000 loan from their father, it allowed paid content from the start, and when Leo Radvinsky bought a 75 percent stake in the parent company, Fenix International, from the Stokelys in 2018, the platform acquired its present identity: a space where adult creators monetise their work without intermediaries. Radvinsky himself died in March 2026, as reported by Reuters.
The scale is striking. The platform serves 4.63 million creators and 377.5 million registered fans (as of November 2024), processing $7.22 billion in payments annually. According to a Barchart analysis of October 2024, OnlyFans generates $37.6 million of revenue per employee, outperforming Nvidia ($3.6m), Apple ($2.4m), Meta ($2.2m) and Google ($1.9m), with a headcount of merely 42 to 46 people. Income distribution, however, is extremely uneven: over 300 creators earn more than a million dollars a year, while the average creator makes $150 to $180 a month.
Erotic Fantasies versus Tax Reality
In most jurisdictions, OnlyFans income is treated as self-employment income: the creator is responsible for reporting and settling taxes, since no one withholds income tax advances the way an employer would. In Poland the classification is subtler, as discussed below: the income falls either under personally performed activity or under business activity, depending on the degree of organisation and continuity.
One caveat is crucial and often escapes creators. The claim that the platform withholds nothing is true only for income tax. For VAT, the Court of Justice of the EU confirmed in Fenix International (C-695/20) that a platform such as OnlyFans acts in its own name vis-à-vis the fans: it is Fenix that accounts for VAT on the full amount paid by the viewer, while the creator supplies a service to the platform, in a business-to-business relationship. This simplifies dealings with millions of fans, but it does not abolish the creator’s obligations; it merely shifts them to a different relationship.
How the Taxman Knows: DAC7, CESOP and Lifestyle Analytics
Commentators like to speak of artificial intelligence algorithms, but the actual pipes through which the data flows have concrete names. The first is the DAC7 directive, obliging digital platform operators to report sellers and creators to tax administrations across the Union; implemented in Poland by the Act of 23 May 2024, in force since 1 July 2024, it covered data as far back as 2023, with the first full reports delivered to the administration by 31 January 2025 and circulating automatically between Member States. The second is CESOP, the EU system that since 2024 has been collecting quarterly reports from payment service providers on cross-border payments: every card-paid subscription leaves a trace invisible on a bank statement but visible in the database. The third, domestic, layer consists of bank-flow analytics such as the Polish STIR system. Only at the end of this list comes what Cyprus demonstrated: manual and semi-automated screening of social media profiles for lifestyles inconsistent with declarations. The taxman does not have to guess anything; the data is simply delivered.
United States: the Case of Kylie Leia Perez (Natalie Monroe)
The most publicised criminal case in the US concerns Kylie Leia Perez (stage name Natalie Monroe), a creator from Tampa, Florida, who earned over $5.4 million on OnlyFans between 2019 and 2023. A grand jury returned the indictment on 22 July 2025, and the Department of Justice press release lists one count of filing a false tax return and four counts of failure to pay income tax, with the loss estimated at no less than $1.6 million. According to the indictment, Perez filed a false return for 2019 and paid no tax at all for 2020 to 2023, despite annual earnings ranging from $202,998 to $2,130,898. She was arrested on 14 August 2025 and released on $50,000 bail; the combined maximum exposure for all counts was seven years in federal prison.
The case was handled by IRS Criminal Investigation and prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida, which signals top federal priority. Nor is it an isolated instance: as early as December 2022, Forbes reported pairs of IRS special agents visiting the homes of OnlyFans creators and their tax advisers, serving grand jury subpoenas. It is a coordinated nationwide operation involving the Department of Justice.
Ireland: the Irish Viking Saga, or When Vikings Forget the Tribute
Matthew Gilbert, known online as The Irish Viking, entered the history of Irish tax disputes as the first high-profile OnlyFans creator whose case ended, in March 2025, with publication on Revenue’s official list of tax defaulters. The list is an Irish institution of public shaming: every quarter it names individuals and companies whose tax arrears exceeded statutory thresholds.
Gilbert built his brand on the image of a modern Viking; by his own account, his adult content brought in around €50,000 a month from a base of some 3,000 fans, that is in the region of €600,000 a year. A tax audit revealed that he had understated his personal income by €61,734; once it closed, Gilbert paid €88,681, as penalties and interest were added to the arrears. A separate audit of his company, Matty Irish Viking Limited, a corporate structure meant to professionalise the business and serve tax planning, ended worse: as reported by the Irish Examiner, understatements of corporation tax, PAYE, PRSI, USC and VAT totalled €191,464, and the company’s overall liabilities, with penalties and interest, reached €266,693, nearly three times the original understatement.
The story is symbolic for three reasons. Gilbert hid nothing; on the contrary, he built a recognisable brand, which made Revenue’s job of identifying the source easier. Even a limited liability company offers no shelter if employer duties and VAT are not properly handled. And a public defaulters list, available online and eagerly covered by the media, deters more effectively than many a fine.
Cyprus: the Great Clean-up of the Digital Grey Zone
October 2025 brought a breakthrough in Cyprus in the taxation of the digital economy. The Tax Department announced the results of a months-long operation: around 300 individuals and entities were identified, including many tax residents of other EU states, who had earned through OnlyFans without declaring a single eurocent. Inspectors scanned thousands of profiles on Instagram, TikTok and OnlyFans itself, flagging lifestyles inconsistent with declarations; in extreme cases, creators earning up to €500,000 a year appeared in the system as persons with no income at all.
The investigation quickly outgrew its original target: the net caught beauticians booking treatments via Instagram, taxi drivers bypassing licensed corporations, hairdressers running home salons advertised on Facebook, and travel agents operating without registration. Each identified person will receive a formal notice demanding corrected returns, with warnings of backdated taxation, penalties proportionate to the scale of concealment and, failing cooperation, criminal proceedings for tax fraud. The operation has an international dimension: under the DAC mechanisms, information on residents of other states will flow automatically to their home administrations. For digital nomads who chose Cyprus for its rates, this may mean double trouble, with both the Cypriot and the home tax authorities. One caveat is due: the operation is so far known from industry reporting; the Tax Department has published no separate release, so its scale awaits confirmation at source.
Poland: the Boundary Runs Along Touch
The Polish thread of this story is the most perverse in Europe, because here the taxation of erotic content depends on a criterion known to no economics textbook: physical contact.
The starting point is art. 2 ust. 1 pkt 4 of the Polish PIT Act (Article 2(1)(4), Personal Income Tax Act), under which the Act does not apply to revenues from acts that cannot be the subject of a legally effective contract. A contract for physical sexual services is void under Polish civil law as contrary to the principles of community life, so income from classic prostitution remains outside income tax altogether, regardless of the amount: in a ruling of 24 June 2026 (0112-KDIL2-1.4011.530.2026.3.JK) the Director of National Fiscal Information confirmed no PIT on regular payments of PLN 20,000 to 30,000 a month from a single sponsor, and in a ruling of 2 April 2025 (0114-KDIP3-1.4011.168.2025.1.LS) extended the exclusion to hotel meetings abroad, including in countries where prostitution is fully legal.
The world on the other side of the camera looks entirely different. The line was drawn back in January 2015, in a case with a piquant twist: a webcam performer herself labelled her activity virtual prostitution, hoping the stigmatising word would bring a tax exemption. The authority replied that she surrenders to the client not her body but its image, and taxed her in full (IBPBI/1/415-1164/14/AP). A decade later the same logic was applied to a company organising interactive streams: since the presenters do not engage in prostitution, the company pays corporate income tax like any other business (0111-KDIB1-3.4010.632.2025.3.APO). The conclusion for OnlyFans creators is unambiguous: everything that passes through a camera is fully taxable in Poland. The tax office taxes pixels, not flesh.
How to Settle OnlyFans Income in Poland
A creator’s income qualifies either as personally performed activity (art. 13 pkt 2 of the PIT Act, artistic activity) or, given the organisation and continuity typical of a regularly run account, as business activity, with a choice of taxation forms. VAT is a separate front: a taxable person is anyone who independently, for profit and on a continuous basis supplies services for consideration, regardless of any registration, and the small-business exemption ends at PLN 240,000 of annual sales (the threshold in force from 2026). After the CJEU’s Fenix judgment, the creator settles VAT with the platform rather than with each fan individually, which tidies up the place of supply but requires the arrangements to be set consciously.
Costs: You Deduct What Can Be Taken Off After the Show
In a 2024 ruling (0115-KDWT.4011.34.2024.2.DS) the tax authority allowed an adult content creator to deduct outfits, lingerie, shoes, wigs, erotic props, lubricants, hotels, flights and the services of a photographer and an editor, because they serve a specific production. It refused aesthetic medicine, eyelash extensions, manicure and hairdressing, because these permanently alter the person, not the creation. The rule is simple and worth remembering: deductible is what goes back on the shelf after the shoot; what stays in the body remains a personal expense.
Evidence Matters More Than Declarations
The PIT Act contains a presumption (art. 2 ust. 6) that, absent proof to the contrary, revenues derive from taxable acts. Whoever claims otherwise must prove it, and what that proof looks like in practice was shown by the Supreme Administrative Court in its judgment of 23 October 2018 (II FSK 3069/16): the authorities examined the taxpayer’s clients as witnesses, computed her revenue from the number of meetings and the rates, recognised only the amounts proven, and subjected the surplus expenditure to the 75 percent flat-rate tax. For a digital creator the lesson is a mirror image: records of platform payouts, cost invoices and a coherent bank history are the only real insurance, because undeclared OnlyFans income in Poland means reassessment with interest, fiscal criminal liability and, where no source can be shown, the punitive 75 percent rate.
For more on the case-law paradoxes, see our analysis of rulings on the taxation of erotic services in Poland.
Epilogue: Erotica Meets Accounting
OnlyFans changed the economics of the adult industry: it democratised production, eliminated exploitative intermediaries and handed creators 80 percent of revenue instead of the 20 to 30 percent of the traditional model. But no revolution changes the fundamental law: in exchange for infrastructure, public order and a legal system that makes business possible, the state demands its share. The difference is that creators once held an informational advantage and could count on their income remaining invisible. That advantage is gone: DAC7, CESOP and payment-flow analytics see everything. The algorithms have beaten the fantasy.
Poland adds a punchline no screenwriter would invent: the only untaxed version of this business here is the one based on physical contact, while everything that passes through a camera also passes through the tax office. The lesson for creators is therefore simple: you can be naked in front of the camera, but never in front of the tax officials. They will not pay for a subscription, but they will take their share anyway. Better to set up your affairs in advance, with a professional adviser, than to wait until the taxman comes for his cut, with interest.
Robert Nogacki – licensed legal counsel (radca prawny, WA-9026), Founder of Kancelaria Prawna Skarbiec.
There are lawyers who practice law. And there are those who deal with problems for which the law has no ready answer. For over twenty years, Kancelaria Skarbiec has worked at the intersection of tax law, corporate structures, and the deeply human reluctance to give the state more than the state is owed. We advise entrepreneurs from over a dozen countries – from those on the Forbes list to those whose bank account was just seized by the tax authority and who do not know what to do tomorrow morning.
One of the most frequently cited experts on tax law in Polish media – he writes for Rzeczpospolita, Dziennik Gazeta Prawna, and Parkiet not because it looks good on a résumé, but because certain things cannot be explained in a court filing and someone needs to say them out loud. Author of AI Decoding Satoshi Nakamoto: Artificial Intelligence on the Trail of Bitcoin’s Creator. Co-author of the award-winning book Bezpieczeństwo współczesnej firmy (Security of a Modern Company).
Kancelaria Skarbiec holds top positions in the tax law firm rankings of Dziennik Gazeta Prawna. Four-time winner of the European Medal, recipient of the title International Tax Planning Law Firm of the Year in Poland.
He specializes in tax disputes with fiscal authorities, international tax planning, crypto-asset regulation, and asset protection. Since 2006, he has led the WGI case – one of the longest-running criminal proceedings in the history of the Polish financial market – because there are things you do not leave half-done, even if they take two decades. He believes the law is too serious to be treated only seriously – and that the best legal advice is the kind that ensures the client never has to stand before a court.
