According to Abba: The Official Photo Book, published to mark 40 years since they won Eurovision with Waterloo, the band’s style was influenced in part by laws that allowed the cost of outfits to be deducted against tax – so long as the costumes were so outrageous they could not possibly be worn on the street.
Wouldn’t it be cheaper just to wear normal clothes when you perform?
Or were they so broke that they wore their costumes as normal clothes “on the street”?
This isn’t making a lot of sense to me either way.
I’m guessing they didn’t pay for the costumes themselves. They just got to write off the cost because they were wearing them. But I don’t know how it works for sure.
Band member 1 makes a costume for band member 2. Material cost: $12. Band member 1 sells it to band member 2 for $15,000.
Band member 2 makes costume for band member 3…
Write off not just the materials cost, but the purchase price.
The costume making income is below the taxable income so it’s not taxed.
Band income goes into a trust, rather than being paid directly to members. Members are all board members on the trust and get paid a salary.
And so it goes, round the washing machine of accounting.
If someone else bought the costumes, then they certainly can’t write them off.
I think I figured it out!
They were going to have to wear costumes regardless, but they would be able to not pay taxes on them if the costumes were crazy enough.
I appreciate the amount of thought you’ve put into this, while I just make cynical comments.
It made me start thinking about it and then it bothered me enough to try to figure it out.
As we often hear over in Lemmy Shitpost, “I know this is a shitpost, but…”
It really seems like these would be more expensive by more than the tax benefits
@[email protected] explained it:
I’ve read the comment, but that’s not how taxes usually work. (It is, however, like a lot of people with little knowledge about the topic think tax deductions in general work - which makes me suspicious)
It would take bit more of the than that comment at face value to convince me that apparent law exist(ed)
Not at all, Sweden during the ABBA age was completely nuts. There was no cap on taxes, and as such, you could incur a more than 100% marginal tax rate.
Astrid Lindgren (the beloved childrens book writer) was amongst those affected.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomperipossa_in_Monismania
I think it’s a case of the outfits essentially being akin to a work uniform. You wouldn’t wear it on the street, and you need it for work (as I guess stage and screen actors do too), and due to that you can claim it as a work expense and is tax deductible?
I think that’s it, yeah. This way they avoided paying tax on their costumes.
I think it was even better than that. It wasn’t just the tax on the costume, it was the entire cost of them could be deducted from their tax bill. The more extravagant and expensive, the smaller that years tax bill!
There you go. Thanks for the explanation!
They probably wanted nicer clothes than normal but were able to save more by springing for something that qualified for a deduction.
I prefer performers resemble superior race ambassadors from a yet undiscovered groovy exoplanet