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Last updated on June 24th, 2017 at 01:23 pm
Reader Eivind O., of Dallas, Texas, sheds some light on an earlier post linking to a Vampus item on brightly-attired Swedish band the Gert Jonnys:
The headline says “Tax incentives work”, referring to the linked article.
The gist of the article is that all the funny pictures of Swedish bands of that era are a result of tax policy. It’s a commentary on the lengths to which people will go to avoid paying outrageous tax rates. The rules for bands in Sweden were that you could deduct outlays for clothes provided the clothes were too fanciful to be worn in daily life.
The article thus makes the point for politicians to watch out for the unintended consequences when formulating taxes and regulations, because people will put up with a lot of ridicule and inconvenience to avoid what the eager bureaucrats try to accomplish.
Also, Rafe asked in the comments what they are saying about Thatcher: “Thatcher innførte den mest rettferdige skatten noensinne prøvd: koppskatten”.
The commenter suggests that Thatcher installed the fairest tax ever tried, the poll tax. A flat rate for every adult. (Koppskatt: from Kopf, German for head).
Bad tax policies lead to this. Much thanks to Eivind, and to Vampus for the original post.
UPDATE. The University of Michigan’s Dave emails: “After I showed a Swedish/American friend the Gert Jonnys link, she told me they were part of a whole sub-Abba Swedish genre called ‘dansband.’ Some more great dansband promotional photos can be found here. My favourite is Curt Mortenz.”
