Estonia's northern neighbors sure have their minds set on Eestimaa. For Swedes it's a low-tax haven where the alcohol and tv commercials come cheap.
As The Local reports:
When the Swedish tax authority wanted to produce a television advertisement to encourage taxpayers to pay up on time, they chose to make it in low-cost Estonia, partly in a bid to escape high Swedish taxes.
The ads, featuring popular comic Johan Wahlström, would have cost 50 to 100 percent more to make in high-tax Sweden than they did in Estonia, Björn Tennholt at the Swedish Tax Authority (Skatteverket), told Expressen.
Asked why the ads cost so much less to make on the other side of the Baltic, Tennholt said it was due to the wages. When pressed by Expressen's reporter as to whether the taxes were partly to blame he admitted, "of course, Sweden is a high-tax society."
The Swedish tax authority also printed their brochures in Finland to cut down on cost, but Swedish tax brochures are not what Finnish guys are after. No, Finnish guys crave Virolainen vittu. As the Helsingin Sanomat reports:
One in four buyers of sex services in Estonia are Finns, according to an extensive survey released on Thursday.
About 400 prostitutes in different parts of Estonia responded to the questionnaire arranged by the European Union equality project Equal last autumn.
Finns were overwhelmingly the largest group of foreign customers, coming right after local men.
That's right, the Estonia of 2006 boasts an economy so healthy, local men can now take advantage of the sex trade:
According to sex service providers, more than half of buyers were middle-aged married Estonian men ... The most typical customers were Estonian married men and local Russians.
It's nice to see Estonians moving on up in the world.
5 kommentaari:
Holy Moses, what a "wonderful" world we are living in! Hehe, the apex of surreal has been reached by the Swedish tax authority sneaking around and avoiding their high taxes by going to Estonia to pay them at a lower rate. I still classify this as a funny thing but that my country men stumbling around, pumped full of cheap booze and getting discount vittu to boot, makes me to crinch. This sounds so pathetic in so many levels but most of all because it is predatory in it's nature. But then again, Giustino, you have seen us Finnish males. To get some vittu we have to pay. We are not excatly eye candy, are we? :)
All this can sometimes feel quite degrading actually. Being the poor kid with the rich ones (I mean Scandinavian countries ofcourse, not Russia, i'm not really sure what the hell Russia is). But i don't hold a grudge on Finns or Swedes. Finnish people are just Estonians who migrated across the Finnish gulf or maybe Estonians are Finnish people who stayed behind. ;)
Russia is the uncle that molested you but doesn't apologize and says you 'asked for it.'
I would think this would be MORE degrading if Estonian men weren't the ones buying most of the sex in Estonia. But they are. So they can't complain when cousin Juha does the same.
Then again, at least 3 of 4 sex SELLERS are Russian.
I don't imagine Estonian women would make good prostitutes. They are too punctual. You can imagine an Estonian prostitute saying 'times up'and looking at her watch while her customer is peaking...
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