Taxpayers' Tatler

Once again last week, as it had every year since 1911, Sweden's Taxeringskalender was proving a boon to the boastful, a murrain to the miserly and a surefire smash in the bookstalls. The book--a privately published almanac which meticulously lists the annual earnings of every Swede, except royalty, who makes more than 15,000 kronor (about $3,000)--sold 14,000 copies during the first few days after publication.

As usual, its appearance brought a blizzard of complaints howling down upon Editor Gosta Blomberg and the offices of Sweden's tax collectors. Thousands of outraged taxpayers complained of being undercharged and hence deprived of a listing among the aristocracy of the higher brackets. Others, equally outraged, swore that they had never made that kind of money in their lives. One distressed soul had even quietly tried to bribe Editor Blomberg into leaving his name out of the register. If his wife learned his real income, pleaded the unhappy taxpayer, it would cost him at least a new mink coat.

But stern Editor Blomberg refused to veer an inch from the figures given him by the tax bureau (at a cost of 2-c- apiece). "It's just as hard to get into this book if you don't qualify," he said, "as it is to get out if you do." Blomberg himself was listed at $7,000 per annum, well below Stockholm's No. 1 earner, Banker Jacob Wallenberg ($170,000), but close to Prime Minister Tage Erlander ($8,000).

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