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Swedish Tax Office Targets Webcam Strippers

Sweden's tax authorities are cracking down on unreported webcam stripper income. They estimate that hundreds of Swedish women are dodging the law, resulting in a tax loss of about 40m Swedish kronor (£3.3m) annually. The search involves tax officials examining stripper websites, hours upon hours, for completely legitimate purposes. A slightly disheveled project leader said 200 Swedish strippers had been investigated so far, adding the total could be as much as 500. "They are young girls, we can see from the photos. We think that perhaps they are not well informed about the rules," he said.

6 of 384 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Hiring? by internerdj · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Interesting comment, that I'm sure plenty are thinking. So how does this sentiment reflect on those who hunt for child-porn prosecution purposes? What better place for a predator than to have offensive material sent to them as a "necessary" part of their job?

  2. Re:Hiring? by DavidChristopher · · Score: 3, Interesting



    Well, In this case, they're not looking for some kind of morality charged justice to be handed out, they're looking for tax revenue.

    But it remains an Interesting point. You're basically asking "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" When those who are tasked to protect the weak exploit the weak, who will protect us from our protectors?

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  3. The line on this is so thin. by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If you have a relationship with a girl and she takes her clothes off and you give her thousands of dollars a year, it's not taxable.
    Even if you were in a multiple spouse household, it would still be true (multiple guys supporting her).

    Without the "relationship" (one date? you don't have to be living together in the same house), it's taxable.

    --
    She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
  4. Re:Do they even know they need to report it?!? by Tacvek · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Yes. It is always A good idea to report all illegal income on the tax form. There is a special spot for it on the US tax forms, although I believe having a non-zero value for that line is is considered sufficient to issue an arrest/search warrant. (More on that later). Therefore The best course is to add it into the general income. I think that might technically be fraud, but the IRS would be very reluctant to prosecute any fraud that results in a greater amount of tax income.

    Many organized criminals have been very well known, with the police being pretty darn certain about various crimes that have been committed, but lacking enough evidence to obtain warrants. It is often quite possible that with a search warrant They could find enough evidence, but they lack the evidence to get a search warrant, and are rarely ever confident that they would find enough evidence to convict if a search warrant was executed. The last thing they want to do is upset a organized criminal by executing a search warrant, but end up with insufficient evidence to arrest him/her. Often times by the time they have enough evidence for a particular crime, the statute of limitations has made it impossible to prosecute them for it. But if the crime resulted in unlawful income that was not reported on the tax forms, they can still charge them with tax fraud.

    Little of that is probably news to those reading this post. But the important thing to remember is that quite a bit of that also applies to white collar crime. So the best course of action is to report any unlawful income, but not in the designated location, so as to avoid giving the police reason to obtain warrants. Not that I advocate having illegal income, but if you are going to do it, you might as well do it right.

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  5. Re:Seriously? by scorp1us · · Score: 4, Interesting

    When you have an income tax, the government is everyone's pimp. The government can extract anything from its taxpayers with little recourse.

    When the US started the income tax it was 1% on incomes over $250,000 (adjusted) We now tax everyone 20-30% of anyone making over $600. Furthermore, your "fair share" is determined on how productive in enterprising you are. The more you stimulate the economy, the more you're penalized for it.

    I wish people in the US would realize that the more people in government there is, the exponentially more the burden on private enterprise. Assume 1 government worker in a population of 100 can pay 20% of their salary (say $1000) back. The remaining 80% of that salary comes from private enterprise. Now, imagine 99 government workers and one private enterprise person. We then have a $76,200 bill to be paid by one person. Good luck with that.

    Today fully one half of Americans receive federal funding in some way. Good luck with that.

    We have a federal debt of 12 Trillion dollars and a $1+ trillion deficit this year alone. Our taxes should be 60%. But our unborn have no representation in congress. I love those Obama girls. I can't wait to tap them - for their taxes!

    Of course, it is the income tax that allows this. It is so easy to collect as as long as we can keep raising it, we'll keep demanding more and more. Good luck with that.

    With a consumption tax this kind of spending would be impossible.

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  6. Re:Seriously? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Those hard-working people you love so much only have jobs because more business-savvy people are constructing environments in which their hard labor can be turned into something of value, and are directing the efforts of their employees toward appropriate goals.

    Working hard is a very straight-forward proposition that doesn't require your labor to be *worth* anything. But as a result it doesn't guarantee that you will be creating any value - for yourself or others. You come across as a pure "means of production" communist. If you succeed in running your little experiment you will discover that everyone can be working their asses off and still producing jack-shit, if the people who are good at preventing that scenario are held back and the free market is tied up with taxes, regulations, protectionism and government-granted monopolies.

    Your mistake is that you think labor is intrinsically worth something. It's not. Supply in an environment of demand is intrinsically worth something. Pure laborers are just one cog in the production of the supply.

    Entrepreneurs set up the equation to actually produce value and - as a result - wages; and they do so at great risk to their own livelihood. Risks pure laborers are disinclined or outright unwilling to take. Middle managers, while easy to pick on, exist primarily because pure laborers are so unlikely to efficiently produce things of value if left unmanaged, so if you hate them so badly you have only your workers to blame. It's true that they aren't setting up the value environment like the true business leaders, but it's not true that they are unnecessary. They may well be overpaid, but it's not *your* money they are being paid with so you don't have any right to deny it to them.