The Year of Living Danishly

by Helen Russell

  ‘Like hibernation?’

  ‘Sure. Of course, now it’s not like it was in the times gone by. Now we have supermarkets and shops and offices to go to in winter. But there’s still a cultural emphasis on being together. It can be really bad outside but then you can just come home and have a cup of tea and everything will feel better.’

  If I’m understanding him correctly, Danes stay happy in winter because it’s so awful outside that coming home inspires an overwhelming rush of relief and gratitude at having survived the elements.

  ‘So no one goes out?’

  ‘Well, you can, of course,’ he concedes, ‘you just have to dress right. We have a saying in Denmark that there is no truly bad weather, just bad clothes.’

  ‘So we should all be wearing snowsuit onesies?’

  ‘Sure!’

  ‘And Danish weather really makes you happy?’

  ‘Yes!’ I demand his score out of ten and he thinks about it for a moment. ‘I’d say I’m a nine.’

  ‘Nine?’

  ‘OK,’ he concedes, ‘a ten! Why shouldn’t I be happy? I’m living in one of the best countries in the world! In what way can I complain?’

  I relay John’s gem to Lego Man – ‘He says there is no such thing as bad weather, only the wrong clothes’ – and watch his eyes light up.

  ‘That means we can buy stuff! Winter weather clothes! With high tog counts! And wicking fabrics! And dynamic water-repellent outer layers! Like Gore-Tex…’ he adds, with that dreamy, faraway look in his eyes that he gets when he can combine his twin passions of shopping and technical clothing.

  Later, I find him online ordering a gilet and a snow-suit for the baby. Our future child still has nothing to sleep in, no pram, no pushchair, and no car seat to transport (80 per cent likely) him home from hospital. But at least he’ll be clad in North Face. And probably be born wearing a rucksack.

  My mother has been keeping a close eye on the Danish weather from the UK and sends daily emails entitled things like: ‘WOW! MINUS 15!!!!!!!!!!!’ She comes to visit for the weekend and when we meet her at the arrivals gate she’s wearing salopettes, a ski jacket and a red beret.

  ‘Good grief…’ I mutter.

  ‘It’s a strong look,’ admits Lego Man. I look at him accusingly: ‘Have you been briefing her?’

  ‘I … might have mentioned the forecast,’ he admits, ‘and the thing you said about “no such thing as bad weather, only the wrong clothes” and all that for her first trip over in winter.’ I roll my eyes.

  ‘Darling!’ My mother looks flushed. She must be boiling but appears not to mind: ‘I was the only one dressed appropriately on the flight,’ she announces gaily.

  I explain that even though it’s cold, we still tend to wear semi-normal clothes when we’re inside.

  ‘Well I don’t know why, with your circulation. Look, your fingers are almost blue.’ She’s right. I hate that. ‘Anyway, it’s not a fashion show…’ (this, along with ‘Shoulders back, darling’, has been her mantra since 1986). Lego Man finds himself agreeing with her, infuriatingly, and the pair of them spend the next two days comparing fleecy mid-layers and woollen socks.

  The weekend passes too quickly and before I know it, I’m driving her back to Billund airport. I wish she could stay longer, and start planning her next visit already. I may be an Actual Grown-Up about to have a child of my own, but sometimes you just really need your mum. It’s strange to think that the next time I see her, I’ll be presenting her with a grandchild. For now, I offer her a snegle instead in Billund’s biggest (aka ‘only’) winter attraction: the bakery. My mother agrees to strip off some of her outer Alpine layers but manages to karate chop her way through an ornamental display of dried plaited loaves in the process while trying to free limbs from ski attire. In its brittle, desiccated state, the bread virtually explodes, propelling crumbs everywhere. Once we’ve apologised profusely, offered to help sweep up, and bought several buns by way of compensation, I spend fifteen minutes helping my mother to re-robe again before going back outside. Getting dressed to face a winter’s day in Denmark is exhausting.

  After an emotional goodbye at the airport, I turn up the hot air blowers in my mobility tomato, crunch into first gear and set off for home. It’s hard to drive with mittens on but I’m managing it, somehow, though the idea of four more months of winter spent dressed like a yeti is starting to make me feel a little claustrophobic. I have a sudden urge to come over all Joan Collins and escape to St Tropez to drink cocktails on a yacht. In lieu of this, I think WWJD: What would Joan do? How would Joan cope with this expanse of frozen nothingness? Since G&Ts, strange diets, and the option of marrying a much younger man are out (for now, anyway), I rifle in the glove box for my emergency lipstick and apply liberally. Then I resolve to read a glossy magazine on my iPad and put some perfume on when I get home, until cosmopolitan balance has been restored.

  Driving back, the sun is setting (at 3.30pm) and the sky is turning an orangey-purple colour. I reach the crest of a hill before turning off into Sticksville and see the remnants of the sun creating orange slices across a cool, navy blue sea. I catch my breath at its beauty and for a moment, I forget how bleak it has been and will be again.

  I wonder whether maybe this is a bit like childbirth – of course the experience smarts a bit, but then you’re left with something wonderful and you forget the pain. Here’s hoping.

  * * *

  Things I’ve learned this month:

  Danes are adept at looking on the bright side, even in the bleak midwinter

  You can get by with a little help from your friends, family, candles and cake

  Dogs get SAD too

  You should never wear salopettes on a plane

  When things get really rough, stay home

  …or think WWJD. Joan Collins: an inspiration for all seasons

  12. December

  Trusting the Taxman (or Woman)

  The twelfth month in Denmark is a time for taking stock, taking time out, and taxes. Doing life admin in your own country is arduous enough, but attempting to do it in a foreign land, in a language with which you’re still not familiar, is nigh on impossible. After eleven months of Google Translating every document that came my way, I’ve become a little slack of late. Which is why I’m caught off guard when the romper-suited postwoman rings the doorbell first thing on Monday morning and hands me an official-looking envelope. It’s a shouty red letter from the ‘skat’ office and they want to know when I’m going to be sending some kroner their way. ‘Skat’ means ‘tax’ in Danish – as well as ‘beloved’ or ‘honey’, incidentally.

  ‘So, technically, when I pay tax, I’m giving my honey to the skatman…’ I tell Lego Man, who fails to see the funny side and suggests I get on the case before we’re sent any more angry missives from the state.

  I nod and try to look sensible but can’t get the 90s classic by Scatman John out of my head (‘Ski-bi dibby dib yo da dub dub, yo dab dub dub…’). As well as racing to finish commissions and meet deadlines before junior arrives, I’m now being forced to address the depressing issue of how little of my income I actually get to keep in Denmark. As though being a freelancer wasn’t tough anyway, negotiating the tax system of a famously levy-heavy country proves predictably horrific. After much ringing around and some tears (I blame the hormones), I find someone who speaks English and can explain what’s required. I need help, fast, as well as advice on what to do next to a) not get deported and b) not be socially stigmatised for failing to treat Denmark’s hallowed taxation system with the respect it so clearly deserves.

  Kim Splidsboel is a real-life skatman. He somehow found himself having been volunteered by the state to take a 45-page PowerPoint presentation on a tour of the country to educate new arrivals. Unfortunately for Kim, I missed this gem of a night out when it came to The Big City, so now he’s having to go through it one-to-one. Poor Kim.

  He starts at the very beginning, explaining that the income year here runs from 1 J
anuary to the 31 December. Which is handy, as someone who is simultaneously trying to sort out her UK tax return for a financial year that runs from April to April. And all because Henry VIII wanted to get his end away (for a more comprehensive explanation of how a 16th-century monarch ruined my month, see http://www.taxadvisorypartnership.com/tax-compliance/why-does-the-uk-tax-year-start-on-6-april-each-year/).

  ‘In Denmark we ask freelancers and the self-employed to pay their estimated taxes as they go, so that they don’t skip town mid-year,’ says Kim. ‘You have a running income, you pay a running tax. That’s the rule.’

  ‘Ah…’ This is news to me.

  The kind but rather scatty lady at the local tax office I visited back in January assured me that I could pay what I owed at the end of the year. Admittedly her English wasn’t great and my Danish was, at the time, non-existent. But I’m now suspecting that what she actually meant was that all accounts needed to be settled and any extras are paid annually. Not, as I had interpreted it, that I should just sit on my hands and whistle until Christmas came around.

  ‘I, er, wasn’t quite aware of the whole monthly system,’ I confess.

  Kim doesn’t answer straight away and I feel a panic rising.

  ‘I’m not going to be arrested or anything, am I?’ I half joke. Could I get a criminal record? Will I end up in prison? My imagination goes into overdrive as I consider worst-case scenarios before reasoning that, actually, it might not be so bad. I bet Denmark’s prisons are some of the best in the world. Maybe it would be nice to have a rest there for a little while. I’m currently facing the prospect of a houseful of relatives for Christmas. Lego Man’s parents are arriving, expecting bed and full board for seven whole days and nights. A bit of bird, I consider, might be a welcome break. I wonder whether New Nordic Cuisine has reached the country’s penal system or whether we’re talking more meatballs and pickled herring. I’m just deciding it’s probably the latter when the skatman interrupts.

  ‘It’s OK: you can still do your taxes now.’

  ‘Oh! OK then.’ It looks like I’m down for the Christmas catering after all.

  ‘You just use your NEM ID to log on and check how much you should have been paying.’

  ‘Right. And, er … remind me how I do that again?’

  There follows a lengthy and highly complicated explanation that takes up ten pages of my trusty spiral-bound reporters’ notepad – in addition to Kim’s 45-page PowerPoint presentation. NEM ID is the online login system used in Denmark for all government websites and banks. It combines the national ID number (from my yellow Central Population Registry or CPR card) with a surprisingly retro fold-out flap of bingo-esque number pairings that are used as authentication keys. Old school, but effective. Once I’ve got my head around this, Kim goes on to tell me what I’m likely to have to cough up.

  ‘Income below 42,800 DKK [around £4,600 or $7,800 at time of scribbling, although the level is adjusted annually] is tax-free. Then you pay 37 per cent tax on earnings of up to 449,000 DKK [about £50,000 or $85,000 – a salary not uncommon in Denmark] with a top tax rate of 51.7 per cent, on anything you earn above this figure. Oh, and everyone automatically pays 8 per cent social security tax.’

  Blimey, I think, it’s not as though living in Denmark has been exactly cheap as it is. In addition to the sky-high income tax, the 25 per cent value added tax (‘moms’) is whacked onto virtually everything here. Homeowners also pay property taxes and members of the Danish national church (i.e. the majority of the country, as I discovered back in May) pay a separate levy. Oh, and of course cars, petrol and electricity are also heavily taxed to regulate consumption and try to make Danes even greener than they already are.

  ‘And, tell me,’ I ask Kim, curious now, ‘do Danes mind paying so much tax? I mean, don’t they meet Americans or people from other countries and think “you lucky bastards!”?’ I’ve become a bit sweary in my third trimester. Apologies.

  ‘Not at all,’ Kim tells me. ‘People pay their taxes with pleasure in Denmark because they know that we get the best social welfare in the world in return. We get free schools, universities, doctors, hospitals, automatic holiday pay that’s very generous, and employers pay into a good pension system that really benefits Danes and those who settle here.’

  ‘Most Danes will have needed the services of the Danish state at some point or another in their lives – they’ll have had a family member who was sick or something – so they understand the infrastructure and know that their money is going to a good place.’

  When he puts it like this, it sounds surprisingly sensible. Danes have a collective sense of responsibility – of belonging, even. They pay into the system because they believe it to be worthwhile. The insanely high taxation also has some happy side effects. It means that Denmark has the lowest income inequality among all the OECD countries, so the difference in take-home wages between, for instance, Lego’s CEO and its lowliest cleaner, isn’t as vast as it might be elsewhere. Studies show that people who live in neighbourhoods where most people earn about the same amount are happier, according to research from San Francisco State University and the University of California Berkeley. In Denmark, even people working in wildly different fields will probably have a similar amount left in the bank each month after tax.

  I’m interested in the idea that income equality makes for better neighbours and want to put it to the test. But since I live in what is essentially a retirement village, where no one apart from Friendly Neighbour works, there isn’t much of an opportunity in Sticksville. So I ask Helena C about hers. She tells me that the street she lives in is populated by shop assistants, supermarket workers, accountants, lawyers, marketers and a landscape gardener.

  ‘Everyone has a nice home and a good quality of life,’ she says, ‘it doesn’t matter so much what you do for work here.’ Regardless of their various careers and the earning potential that this might afford them in other countries with lower taxes, professionals and non-professionals live harmoniously side by side in Denmark.

  This also makes social mobility easier, according to studies from The Equality Trust on the impact of income equality. So you’re more likely to be able to get on in life, get educated and get a good job, regardless of who your parents are and what they do in Denmark than anywhere else. It turns out that it’s easier to live ‘The American Dream’ here than it’s ever likely to be in the US.

  I’ve known since 1986, when my mother first played me her A Hard Day’s Night LP, that ‘money can’t buy me love’ – but it turns out it’s not much use in terms of happiness either. Research published in Psychology Today found that true happiness comes from having good relationships, meaningful jobs or hobbies, and a sense of being part of something bigger than yourself, like religion, or just being Danish for folk round these parts. The Worldwatch Institute’s 2011 State of Consumption report also found that wealth won’t help you on your way to having a satisfying life and new research shows that there’s even a cut-off point for the amount of income we need to be content. A combined study from the Universities of Warwick and Minnesota found that there was a basic threshold beyond which any extra money added nothing to levels of well-being. The figure is around 197,000 DKK a year (£22,000 or $36,000), after which we apparently get wealthier but less contented.

  Earning less than this? No need to worry. Research published in Psychological Science journal found that people of lower economic status had more empathy than wealthier people and a study in Psychology Today showed that rich kids had a higher risk of succumbing to eating disorders, cheating and stealing. So yay for you, you’re a better person than anyone on The Sunday Times Rich List and your kids are going to be all right.

  Already taking home more than the happy-income threshold? Don’t despair just yet. There are three solutions, according to experts responding to the report: work less, pay more tax or migrate to a poorer country. Clever Danes, already ahead of the game, have been doing two out of three of these for decades. If you ca
n’t work less or influence your country’s fiscal policy and you don’t fancy decamping to the developing world, I’ve come up with a fourth option: move to Denmark. But bring Lemsip. And a pullover.

  ‘It’s like the weather,’ Kim tells me. ‘You can’t do anything about the tax situation here so you just have to get on with it. Besides, it’s part of who we are.’

  Having high taxes that fund a comprehensive welfare state does seem to be such a big part of Denmark’s identity that I can’t help thinking he may have a point. ‘And are you happy, personally, giving away all your money?’

  ‘Of course!’ he sounds surprised that I’d even ask. ‘I live in a beautiful country, I love Denmark. I’m a Dane in my heart, why wouldn’t I be happy?’ He scores himself a perfect ten out of ten for happiness. Having never interacted with anyone from Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs in the UK who sounded anything above a semi-suicidal two, I surmise that the Danish tax system may not be so bad after all.

  I begin to tally up my receipts on a rudimentary Excel spreadsheet when I come across another hurdle and am forced to phone skat back. Further probing with a far less entertaining skatwoman reveals that because I’m a free-lancer, a ‘foreigner’ and about to have a baby, my ‘case’ is even more complicated than usual. After a few more phone calls, I’m told that I’ll need a chartered accountant to present my records to the local kommune.

  I look up the Danish word for accountant. It is, according to my translation app, ‘bogholder’, which cheers up my morning of taxes immeasurably. I add this to my mental tally of hilarious Danish words, then Google to find one locally.