Wealthy Swedes are thin on the ground - tax figures show

It stands at 843,000 Swedish kronor (88,000 dollars) which puts the German-born wife of King Carl XVI Gustaf in the middle income bracket of the prosperous Scandinavian country. According to Svenska Dagbladet newspaper, that makes her poorer than 367,363 families who declared savings of more than 900,000 knonor.

Year for year the paper sends reporters to the local tax offices to peer into the financial affairs of citizens, particularly the prominent ones. The openness of Swedish society gives anyone the right to enquire about the taxable income and monetary fortune of another. Thus readers who are keen to know about such things found out that Silvia has not got much to call her own although her position as a member of the royal family ensures a soft landing. King Carl Gustaf declared 319 million kronor of personal fortune last year while his three offspring were not badly off either. Perince Carl-Philip had 23 million and crown princesses Victoria and Madeleine 20 million kronor each. Sums like these put the top royals well ahead of top showbusiness figures like former Abba stars Agnetha Faltskog (52 million) and Benny Andersson (15 million) or Per Gessle of rock group Roxette (47.7 million).

Social Democrat Prime Minister Goran Persson appears in the fortune statistics with "nil" fortune but many Swedes will find the premier's annual income of 8.8 million more than adequate. Statistics often give a distorted picture of wealth distribution since they do not contain details of money held abroad or invested in private companies. That doesn't stop Swedish readers from devouring them with gusto. This time they learned that Sweden's most industrious taxpayer is anything but a celebrity. His name is Mats Lederhausen and the taxman is grateful to him to the tune of 112,525,810 kronor or around 11.8 million dollars).

(dpa)