Day 591: The Tax Man Cometh

"Insert witty and or insightful quote about taxes here". That's right, you can't avoid them (except you can if you try. Or if you put all your money offshore. Or if you have a cash in hand job. Or you lie about how much money you have.)

I'll start again shall I.

That's right, it's time to tell the government how much money you haven't got. Except in Sweden where the tax office already knows exactly how much money you haven't got and just wants you to pat it on the back and tell it what a good job it's done following your every financial move. They send you a list of all your money's comings and goings and then all you have to do is go online and tick a box to accept the sums, which for the most part are correct.

It's a damn good thing the tax office is very well organised here because I don't generally have a fucking clue what's going on with my money when everything is explained to me in English, so I have no chance when everything is explained in Swedish. Tax language is one of many languages in which you can understand the individual words in a sentence and still not understand the sentence. For example, this gem: "8.3 Förlust fondandelar m.m. Förlust från bilaga K4 Avsnitt A, K10, K12, avsnitt B och K13" (Loss of mutual fund shares etc. Loss from attachment K4 section A, K10, K12, section B and K13)

One thing I can claim here, which I can't claim in England, is a tax rebate for travelling more than 2 kilometers to work! If you spend more than 10,000 SEK then you can claim tax back on anything you spent. According to Wikipedia the "reseavdrag" or travel compensation works on the principle that your job helps you pay tax and anything which is to the detriment of you working and paying tax should not also be taxed. But it is also pointed out that around 50% of claims for the reseavdrag are false and ask for more money than they should...

Meanwhile, environmentalists point out that the reseavdrag rewards people travelling long distances to work and even using their cars while those who cycle can't claim anything as they don't spend more than 10k on their bikes!

I'm not going to take this up as my political fight. I'm just going to reclaim me some tax money and let you lot figure out the morals for yourselves. Happy taxing!

Day 581: Bewitching Maundy Thursday AKA Skärtorsdag

Ah those days, when we would dress up like old crones.

Easter, that time of year. Everyone's eating easter eggs and sweets and actual eggs and thinking about Jesus maybe. And most importantly the kids are dressing up as witches and going trick or treating...or, no? Wait, isn't that Halloween?

If you ever wanted to see in action the random smashing together of Christian holidays with days of other Pagan traditions, Sweden is THE PLACE. You can tell people that Christmas is in December because of Saturnalia, but nobody remembers what Saturnalia is any more. Or you can explain that Halloween is suspiciously similar to Gaelic Samhain, but people don't really know what that is either.

In England people eat buns with crosses on (because Jesus.) and eat chocolate eggs (because rebirth. And spring.) But just try to explain how little kids dressing up like crones, carrying around coffee pans with tea towels on their heads and going door to door asking for money has anything to do with Easter.

Since the witch trials in Sweden in the 1600's people have believed that Skärtorsdag, the Thursday before Easter, is the day when all the witches fly off on their brooms (or cats, or other household items) to go to a mountain called Blåkulla and have sex with the devil. If  you can read Swedish then there's a lovely graphic description of the devil's penis on the relevant Wikipedia page. Interestingly the English version of the same Wikipedia page doesn't give anything near the same level of detail.

But you know, Easter was already near the devil-witch-sex time so why not nowadays just combine everything and have the kids dress up as witches and sell cards with the Easter bunny door to door?

Witches on household items = Hocus Pocus

Quite how witches went from being detested and feared to being emulated with cutesy costumes is a little bit lost on me. How Swedish people think it's totally normal to have Easter witches and have no understanding as to why is further lost still.