Skatter i Sverige 1981

The aim of this survey was to shed light on the Swedish people´s attitudes towards their taxes. To be able to make a special study of self-employed, particularly in questions concerning tax evasion, this group was over-represented in the sample. The study was carried out as a face to face interview where the interviewer, after concluding the interview, left a supplementary questionnaire to be filled in and returned by the respondent. The interview contained questions on attitude toward the annual obligation to file a tax return, interest in taxation matters, discussions concerning tax regulations, opinion of the general level of taxes, and the use of tax money. The respondent had to state for what purpose the amount of tax money should be increased, kept unchanged, and reduced respectively. For a number of opinions on Swedish taxation policy the respondents had to state if they agreed or not. The respondents also had to state the kind of tax system preferred; taxes to decrease and increase respectively; attitudes toward campaigns for lowering the taxes; and if there ought to be a referendum on the size of the taxes. A number of questions concerned tax evasion, untrue tax return, and black-marketer. For a number of different crimes the respondents had to state how serious they considered them to be. Other questions dealt with the respondent´s knowledge of tax return legislations, of the level of taxes and dues, and of possibilities to influence the decisions of tax authorities, interest in politics, political preference and attitudes toward a number of opinions occurring in the political debate. Background information include occupation, share holding, education, marital status, children living at home, housing, and place of living. Purpose: Shed light on the Swedish people´s attitudes towards their taxesSyftet med denna undersökning var att belysa svenska folkets inställning till sina skatter. För att kunna göra en specialstudie av företagare är denna grupp överrepresenterad i urvalet. Undersökningen genomfördes i form av besöksintervju där man efter intervjun lämnade en kompletterande enkät vilken respondenten fick i uppgift att fylla i och sända in. Intervjun innehöll frågor om inställning till de årliga deklarationerna, intresse för skattefrågor, diskussioner om skatteregler, inställning till skatternas allmänna nivå och hur de används. Respondenterna fick ange för vilka ändamål mängden skattepengar borde ökas, hållas oförändrade eller minskas. För ett antal åsikter om svensk skattepolitik fick man ange om man instämde eller ej. Respondenterna fick även ange vilken typ av skattesystem man föredrog, vilka skatter man tycker borde höjas respektive sänkas, vilken inställning man har till protestkampanjer för att sänka skatterna och om man borde ha folkomröstning om skatternas storlek. En serie frågor berör skattefusk, falskdeklarationer och svart betalning. För ett antal olika typer av brott fick respondenten ange hur allvarligt man ansåg det vara. Övriga frågor tog upp respondentens kunskaper om deklarationsbestämmelser och skatters och avgifters höjd, möjligheter att påverka skattemyndigheters beslut, intresse för politik, politisk preferens och inställning till en serie åsikter som förekommer i den politiska diskussionen. Bakgrundsuppgifter inkluderar sysselsättning, aktieinnehav, utbildning, civilstånd, hemmavarande barn, bostadstyp och bostadsort. Syfte: Belysa svenska folkets inställning till sina skatte

Elections as Levers of Democracy: A Global Inquiry

In this paper we purport to test the proposition that elections have a democratizing effect, drawing on cross-sectional time-series data at best covering a global sample of 193 countries from 1919 to 2004. Two versions of this proposition are tested: one with respect to current effects, another with respect to cumulative effects. The first maintains that the holding of an election would yield democratizing gains more or less immediately, either in the time period following shortly after the election or in the non-electoral spheres of society. The second version instead holds that the historical experience with a prolonged series of elections in the end would yield a democratizing effect. In our tests, we find support for both proposals⎯at least for certain ways of measuring the effects in question. Current effects manifest themselves primarily in the immediate aftermath of multiparty elections. We can also observe improvements in the no-electoral realm (with respect to civil liberties), but this effect is marred with uncertainty regarding the validity of the data at hand. As for the cumulative proposal, we conclude that the number of multiparty—or, even more strongly, free and fair—elections, which a country has experienced, has democratic influence, primarily on the non-electoral sphere of democracy. At the same time, the effect is not very strong and the relative influence of every new election is declining