I Love Tax Forms

No, I haven't gone crazy. I am considering starting up a business in Sweden (ok, that bit might be crazy). Swedish friends kindly sent me the approximately several hundred required documents to peruse, translated into the kind of sensible, friendly, almost philosophical English that first so impressed me with Swedish government information. (My friend Calle thinks that I am a product of the Swedish government designed to encourage people to think that Sweden is great. No comment, Calle. ...Besides, they probably would have designed me to speak Swedish then, no?)

This is my favourite Swedish government quote, and single-handedly convinced me that I'd moved to the perfect country for me:

"Every immigrant is simultaneously an emigrant, depending on your perspective. When Vilhelm Moberg wrote his famous novels about Karl Oskar and Kristina from Duvemåla, who settled in the US, he called the first two books The Emigrants and The Immigrants although he was describing the same people." (For more inspiring literature, check out the Migrationsverket's homepage).

That's opposed to the Australian government pages which are very reticent about your chances of gaining citizenship. They actually state:

"Australian citizenship is not a right, it's a privilege".

For a country that is continuing to encourage women to have babies by offering them cash bonuses (although not paid maternity leave or free education, note, which has interesting social implications and a conspiracy theorist might predict the creation of an uneducated underclass that can easily be manipulated by the monolithic Australian media) I think it's a pretty hypocritical policy. For example if I marry someone or have kids here in Sweden, they won't automatically be Australian. I would have to go and jump through a few hoops (and probably pay off my huge educational debt, which apparently is also not a right but a privilege). Although the marriage bit is probably smart, because I'm sure that otherwise the expat male population of Australia would double overnight as every female bartender in London suddenly got themselves married to extend their visa.

Anyway, yet again I digress. While going through all those forms, this one took the cake:

"We at the Swedish Tax Agency and Swedish Enforcement Service wish you every success. Ask us if you have any queries. "

Isn't that nice? It sounds like you drop in for a cup of tea with Karl Svensson or Eva Lundquist and have a balanced, reasonable chat about your impending prison sentence for tax-evasion.

Bear in mind that was at the end of a document explaining the implications of not paying the correct tax. In Australia, the closing paragraph would no doubt have read:

"Taxes are not a privilege, they're our right. You can run but you can't hide. Pay up, bastards."


P.S. Calle also remarked that I seem obsessed with marriage lately (he can talk, he's the one who's been teasing me about that psychic lady's prediction that I will have four kids. Here's what he thinks they will look like.)

Don't worry mum, it's only because I had a very unpleasant run-in with authorities at the Spanish Embassy, where they threatened not to renew my citizenship...until I said I was single. "Oooh, are you a millionaire?" the guy asked me. Smiling mysteriously, I just filled in the forms as fast as possible (my "translator" for the day, Patrik, was very excited that we managed to "charm" the Spaniards into even giving us the forms). I guess I wasn't very convincing as a millionaire, because it's four weeks later and I still don't have an answer from the Spaniards (but considering they usually lose the first three sets of documents you give them I guess that's not surprising). But I'm getting a bit scared about my EU residency, I wonder if a cup of tea with the very reasonable people at Migrationsverket would grant me refugee status?