Swedish government to improve the working conditions and benefits for sex workers

Thursday, 05 July 2012
People who sell sex and have what is known here F- skatt – that is, they pay corporation tax or business tax, shall also be entitled to sickness benefit. The Swedish social insurance board Försäkringskassan, is now making its rules clearer to officers around the country so that the process can be applied properly. This will among others assist them to know how to determine that prostitutes are taken care of when they are sick.

Joakim Jarnryd, business district director of Swedish social Insurance board told radio Sweden that the fact that prostitutes do what they do is not illegal but then they pay taxes on their work to the treasury, or VAT on a sex sale, that will be considered as economic contribution for their activities and they should be assessed as any other economic operator.

Anyone who sells sex is considered often outside society's normal systems. But the business is not illegal for those who sell sex, but it is illegal only for those who buy. Therefore if a man pays for sex, he will be arrested and the woman who is selling the sex goes free.

(In an egalitarian society where women call for equal rights and equal treatment as men, men are then victims in these types of environments).

Anyway, not to be carried away by emotions, the same rules being worked out here will also apply to the prostitutes who have F-skatt and pay taxes in their business to other entrepreneurs.

It remains unclear however how many people who sell sex do so with F-skatt although there are companies out there representing some organisation that operate in the sex business and are doing tax contribution, according to radio Sweden. The Swedish tax authority also feels that there is a lot of money in the sector which would have come into the treasury had it been encouraged.

Joakim Jarnryd of social insurance board says that they have received a few isolated cases where prostitutes wanted to be entitled to sickness benefit. But the problem has been that it was up to individual officers on the organisation to make an assessment, which could have resulted in different decisions. A universally friendly decision would be a good framework for the system to work properly.

“It is precisely this situation that for some strange reason it is considered to be a gray area, but which I think is a gray area” says Joakim Jarnryd, business area manager at the Social Insurance. And add that that they are determined t make it clearer and easier for operators to use.
By Scancomark.se Team

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