STOCKHOLM, Sweden – Red-faced and stuttering, one top government official after another braves TV cameras to answer allegations of paying nannies or maids under the table.
Such spectacles have become a way of life in Sweden since the new center-right government came to power two weeks ago.
With two ministers forced to resign and several more facing scrutiny, the scandal has underlined Swedes’ contempt for public officials cheating the system.
It has also stirred debate about the temptation to cut financial corners in a country with the world’s highest taxes. If paying for services without informing the taxman disqualifies you from government duty, then few Swedes may be fit for the job.
“There are no flawless people,” said Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, who has defended his ministers through the crisis.
The trouble began just days after his coalition government took power Oct. 6, ending 12 years of Social Democratic rule. Swedish media ran reports that Trade Minister Maria Borelius had paid her nanny under the table.
She claimed she could not afford to pay her nanny legally but tax records showed she and her husband had a combined income several times that of an average Swedish family. Borelius resigned Saturday. Borelius and her husband together reportedly made about $230,000 a year during the 1990s.
Culture Minister Cecilia Stego Chilo was next. She stepped down Monday after admitting she had not only hired a nanny, but also failed to pay her mandatory TV license fee for 16 years.
Every household with a TV set is required to pay the annual fee of about $200, which is the main source of funding for Sweden’s public radio and television.
Finance Minister Anders Borg was in the spotlight Wednesday after media revelations that he hired a cleaner from Poland in the 1990s who didn’t have a work permit.
“I should have checked it out, and I regret that I didn’t do that,” Borg said.
Migration Minister Tobias Billstrom has also come under fire for not paying the TV license fee.
Reinfeldt stood by his ministers and said firing them would signal to Swedes that anyone who bent the rules, however slightly, to make ends meet could forget about a career in politics.
Surveys show about one-third of Swedes have bought “black market services,” mostly for cleaning, painting or carpentry jobs. Hiring a cleaner legally costs around $40 an hour, including taxes, while a black market hire will do the job for less than $14, tax-free.
Reinfeldt’s government has promised to lower taxes on “household services.” The left warns the move will increase class divisions, but analysts say Swedes are fed up with feeling guilty for asking someone to clean their homes.
“Many stressed families would like to get some relief at home if they could afford it,” said Maria Abrahamsson, an editorial writer for Stockholm daily Svenska Dagbladet. “But the left still regards household services as something indecent and ugly.”
The nanny scandal has marred the government’s first two weeks in office and overshadowed its budget proposal Monday. It has started spilling over the border to Norway, where Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg on Tuesday admitted paying for child care under the table about 15 years ago, when he was working as a researcher.
Some say the whole thing has grown out of proportion.
Both TV stations and newspapers reported a growing tide of angry mails from viewers and readers who thought media were going too far in digging up minor transgressions.
An Internet survey by tabloid Aftonbladet showed half of the readers thought it was OK for a minister to have hired a nanny tax-free 10 years ago, while 31 percent would forgive a minister for failing to pay the TV license.
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