Swedish Tax Office Targets Webcam Strippers 384
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.
Re:Cue the Slashdot libertards (Score:4, Informative)
At the foundation of the United States, taxation == property taxes. Income taxes were never envisioned, and when they were passed after the Civil War to pay for reconstruction of the South, many commentators thought they were unconstitutional. Many people still think they are unconstitutional.
Re:Government goons hot on strippers tracks (Score:1, Informative)
Errr... You've got an issue, we DO have excellent healthcare, the only minus is the "queues", but that'll be fixed soon enough when we let some private healthcare enter the market.
And if it's an income, you'll have to pay, regardless of what it is, and the Swedish government provides the following in this case;
Cheap internet access and the availability of internet connections.
The government most often pays for around 20% of what almost any building in Sweden costs.
The government most certainly HAVE paid for the wires the stream goes trough.
What does police got to do with this?
And by taxed to death, you mean "One of the best standards of living in the world despite paying effectively 53% of our salaries"
The Swedish government fears it's people, more than I could say for the American government, and it's not disgusting, we Swedes complain a lot, but really, our problems are just nuisances compared to the US problems.
Really, educate yourself before saying anything.
Re:Cue the Slashdot libertards (Score:4, Informative)
Except you know, they amended [wikipedia.org] the Constitution to make them not unconstitutional. That's why the whole "amendment" procedure was included in the first place. How precisely can something be unconstitutional when a legally passed Amendment to the Constitution explicitly allows it?
Re:Hiring? (Score:3, Informative)
"Hey, check this out," Faulk says he would be told, "there's good phone sex or there's some pillow talk, pull up this call, it's really funny, go check it out. It would be some colonel making pillow talk and we would say, 'Wow, this was crazy'"
"But if you have nothing to hide", the security officials say, "then you'll let us listen in to your phone calls!"
It makes me sick that Obama changed his policy [slashdot.org] on warrantless wiretapping.
Re:Hiring? (Score:5, Informative)
It makes me sick that Obama changed his policy [slashdot.org] on warrantless wiretapping.
He didn't change anything, he just stopped lying about it.
Re:Seriously? (Score:4, Informative)
You suffer from the "engineers view", or wage-earner's view as being an engineer I once did.
The fact is there are two ways to earn your money. The first is to go work for someone. You put in 40 hours, and you get a market rate. The work is generally uniform and regular. This is our wage earner. He's paid to assemble widgets.
The other way to be paid is a percentage. The creation of an opportunity or the avoidance of a catastrophic expense is is another way to provide value. But here, they pay is not steady. There may be no opportunities to make or mistakes to save. The other way is to be a material participant in the creation of a wholly new product. (Generally opportunities are about finding customers)
When you create a product as part of a team and not earning wages for it, you put in "sweat equity". When the revenue comes in, the profits are distributed in proportion to the sweat equity. This is where you really make money. A $5 slap shop might make millions, and you get your cut.
I really think engineers (but not so much IT) get the wrong deal. Being that there are so many companies that make or save a substantial amount on software sales, these people should be treated as partners. After all their contributions functions long after they leave. They shouldn't get a wage, just revenues.
The other part you miss is the responsibility aspect. A lowly engineer writes code to the specs, fixes bugs. Generally all the heavy lifting is already done. The people who wrote the specs and all the way up to creating the market opportunity have a responsibility to make sure what you produce will be right for the market. You are concerned with the how (linux, php, .net) they are concerned with the what (a CRM for our clients...) If they are wrong, the company can lose thousands of dollars paying labor or equipment costs for fixes. If Apple puts a bad chip in the iPhone, then whomever signed off on that has responsibility. Signing the paperwork isn't hard. Putting the signature in the right place is. You can't say that only engineers made the iPhone. Clearly it was a company effort. And all those lazy management people nailed it.
Then you go on additional taxing higher earners more. Have you ever considered what could be wrought with that additional money? In a worst-case scenario, it sits in a bank and is lent out again. In the best case it is invested to produce future dividends. But by taking higher earners more you take that away, and given the talents outlined above, you really prevent talent from re-entering the economy, creating more economic growth.
Welfare in the hood? (Score:5, Informative)
Given the pitiful percentage we pay for a social safety net in the US compared to most other industrialized democracies, it barely qualifies as a Welfare Hood let alone a Welfare State.
Corporations (Score:3, Informative)
Remember, the whole point of corporations is to avoid personal responsibility while enhancing the owners wealth.
No the point of corporations is to serve the common or public good. See this [slashdot.org].
Falcon
Re:Seriously? (Score:2, Informative)
Education [telegraph.co.uk]
Health [independent.co.uk]