The income guarantee for artists is exactly what it sounds like: an income guarantee. Anyone who does not make money should get help. But if the beneficiary can provide for himself, the guarantee money should not fall out.
A kind of exclusive social contribution for a selected group of cultural practitioners who are considered to be of great importance for Swedish cultural life.
The cultural news review shows that the income guarantee is used by people who, through various maneuvers, avoid showing what income they have on their work. The easiest way is to run its operations in limited companies. Then you decide for yourself how much you want to spend on taxed income. A trickier way is to let someone else invoice for one's work, so that the diligent artist seems to be missing income.
The paying authority only looks at taxed income - which does not look like a serious check on who is eligible for the aid. It can even be perceived as wanting to avoid embarrassing situations with these supportive citizens.
You can compare that the parliamentary pensions are now lowered or withdrawn completely if the former member earns money in companies without paying salary.
As a cultural policy tool, the income guarantee is a somewhat mossy remnant, with a strong feature of the annuity from the king, while other cultural policy has long been focused on infrastructure and projects.
These are not large sums , the guarantee level is like a really low salary for ordinary employees.
But a strenuous waste of tax money, as the Cultural News review shows, undermines the legitimacy of publicly funded cultural life.