(cont. from § 9) Business, capital and property (cont. SkU13)
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
C considers that companies are important for society and that small business owners need opportunities to regulate surpluses and deficits through periodization funds and forest accounts 1. C wants companies themselves to be able to determine sponsorship costs to create profile and profitability, rather than Skatteverket making subjective assessments 1. V considers that taxes should level out income inequalities and proposes a temporary bank tax on banks' excess profits 2. V wants to introduce an inheritance and gift tax with a large exemption limit 2. V also wants to change the 3:12 rules, introduce a state property tax, and carry out a total review of the housing market's rules and taxes 2.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Anders Karlsson (C)
Mr. Speaker! Today we are debating SkU13, Companies, Capital and Property. It is a rather broad area. I will primarily focus on the company's role and its opportunities.
Mr. Speaker! Running a business is very important – for the entrepreneur, of course, but also for society. Society is built on tax revenues from those who are employed. That is where the companies are needed, and in Sweden we have many small companies.
However, great demands are placed on small business owners, especially when they start up, regarding what the regulatory frameworks look like. How one creates profit in the company is crucial. Having a profitable company is not a given, nor is making it work in a good way. There is a need for opportunities to regulate surpluses and deficits. Periodization funds are an excellent way to handle this, but also other things. What, for example, can occur periodically are large revenues from mountain-adjacent forests.
In addition to Centerpartiets reservations, I move for the approval of reservation 13 under point 7, which concerns the forest account and the possibility of managing forest near the mountains. It is a way to broaden the possibilities for the forest account, which also makes it possible to regulate a temporary income for the company.
It is important to be able to regulate with both forest accounts and periodization funds to create less uncertainty for companies. With less uncertainty, there is a greater opportunity to manage the possibilities of hiring staff. If one does not have the possibility of regulation, it can be a contributing cause to not hiring but letting the company go a bit slower in its development. This is often not a big concern for larger companies. There, one can regulate via acquisitions and other management. Within a group, one can move both profits and losses between different parts. This is primarily about small businesses – very small companies – that have income of a one-time nature. Not least within the green sector, the difference can be very large and go from quite okay revenues to really large deficits.
Mr. Speaker! In a year when the harvest is perhaps a third compared to a normal year – 2018 was such a year – it becomes incredibly difficult to manage the deficit. It does not mean that one has more money, it is actually just an impact on the result. But this can provide an opportunity to go to the bank and say what one needs and to manage the result. If one could not manage the result in situations where it goes up and down, it actually means a higher taxation. That is not what one wants if one wants more companies to grow.
When it comes to companies, there are more costs that play a role, for example sponsorship. It is something one can use when one wants to profile their company, and it is important for many. It can be a local small business owner who wants to profile themselves and show that he cares about his home turf and a way to gain acceptance, more customers, and also better profitability.
Our perception of sponsorship is that it is actually like any other cost. All companies want to use the sponsorship as a way to make a larger profit. That is the basic idea. Even a large company can invest very much money, as we see it. It could be about 10–20 million on a large youth initiative to get a child profile. It is also something I consider to be completely correct, if the company needs it for its profile and wants to be there.
Another part of sponsorship is equal sponsorship. It is about which sport one sponsors: men's, women's, or children's sports. That a company wants a profile even in this area is incredibly important so that we do not stifle its opportunities to show what kind of company one is. Especially when one is at an international level, this is very important.
In the EU, one views sponsorship in a different way – more liberally and more like any other cost. The entrepreneur decides what the sponsorship is spent on and at what level.
It is important that we make the right decision, because it cannot be right that the Swedish Tax Agency should make such assessments. It becomes quite subjective and a bit clumsy many times. Today, the large spectator sports, often male-dominated, which attract many people, are favored. It should actually not be a criterion.
Mr. Speaker! That the companies themselves should decide this is my and the Center Party's basic position.
Ilona Szatmári Waldau (V)
Mr. Speaker! The gaps in Sweden have increased in recent years. The difference between those with low wages and those with high wages has become larger. Decades of tax cuts and subsidies for the rich have resulted in growing gaps, and we now have an economic system that needs to be fixed so that more people can get it better.
Taxes should level out income inequalities, not increase them. Important areas to address are the eroded capital taxation and the extremely uneven distribution of wealth. If we are to have a society that holds together, we cannot maintain the class society and the large differences that exist in people's living conditions.
In 2023, the four major banks made a profit that was larger than the budget for the entire Swedish defense. While welfare is on its knees, the banking sector is carving out gold with a carving knife, and it is the severely exposed households that pay with higher interest rates on their loans and low interest rates on their potential savings.
For 2024, the payouts are increasing to new record levels. They are estimated to be between 115 and 155 billion. The banks and the food giants are making large profits, while ordinary people's real wages have been lowered. Many single-person households cannot even afford to eat their fill, and the rising rents and interest rates have forced families with children from their houses and homes.
The Swedish banking market is an oligopoly dominated by the four major banks. This has resulted in the Swedish banks having earned more than their European counterparts for a long time. To address this, Vänsterpartiet has proposed that the state bank, SBAB, should be used to put pressure on the other banks. But as long as there is no regulatory framework in place that creates more pressured competition on the banking market, Vänsterpartiet believes that the banks' excess profits should be taxed. We therefore propose a temporary bank tax.
It is not only the banks and their owners who are carving gold with a woodcarving knife. The wealthy in Sweden are only becoming more and more numerous. The number of dollar billionaires has now increased to 45. Most have inherited their wealth. Sweden belongs to those countries in the world where total wealth is most unequally distributed, and inheritance is a clear example of how capital affects an individual's life chances. Inheritance and gift taxes exist in many OECD countries. Vänsterpartiet proposes that an inheritance and gift tax be introduced in Sweden as well. We do, however, want a fairly large tax-free allowance.
A central thought behind the tax reform of the 1990s was that equal incomes should be taxed equally. Since the reform's implementation, a number of exceptions have been made, among others for dividends from small-scale companies and from unlisted shares. The so-called 3:12 rules give working owners in small-scale companies significantly lower tax on their incomes than ordinary employees. Vänsterpartiet wants to change this.
Today, real estate is a way to avoid tax. Vänsterpartiet therefore wants to supplement the municipal property fee with a state property tax.
Both the abolition of property tax and inheritance and gift taxes, as well as the reduction of tax on dividends and capital gains, have contributed to Sweden moving from being one of the world's most equal countries to being one of the countries in the world where total wealth is most unequally distributed. Vänsterpartiet wants to see a Sweden that is equal, where everyone has food on the table.
Politics has a great responsibility for more housing being built, but also for the right type of housing being built. What is needed above all are rental apartments with reasonable rents. We have a housing market where skewed economic and regulatory conditions apply to the different forms of tenure, to the detriment of the rental apartment. Therefore, Vänsterpartiet wants to see a total review of both regulations and taxes that can level the conditions.
We need a tax policy that benefits ordinary people and not those who are wealthy.
I naturally support all of the Left Party's reservations but here move for approval only of reservation 26.
The deliberation was hereby concluded.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.