Tax procedures and population registration
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
The debate concerns tax procedures and population registration. M considers it a democratic issue to increase knowledge about employer contributions on payslips in order to increase acceptance of a high-tax society 1. M argues that the government acted correctly by scrapping the investigation into exit tax because previous proposals were ill-considered and harmful to companies 1. M sees it as positive that the government is conducting a census and letting the Swedish Tax Agency compile a situational overview to combat fraud and organized crime 1. M emphasizes the importance of authorities not leaking protected personal data in order to uphold the social contract 1.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Boriana Åberg (M)
Mr. Speaker! It is certainly not every day that the Prime Minister's question time is dedicated to a tax debate, but it only shows how important the tax issues are.
Today we are debating the Committee on Taxation's report on Tax Procedures and Population Registration, which deals with motions from the general motion period. Often, motion reports give a déjà vu feeling and can be perceived as the 90s classic Monday all week, where the main character gets to witness the same events unfolding over and over again. A bit like that it is here, when the same motions are raised year after year.
For example, motions regarding the visibility of employer contributions on the payslip have been raised since at least 1985 - as far back as one can go in the digitized parliamentary archive. These motions have been raised exclusively by conservative Members of Parliament who have wanted to increase knowledge of how much tax an employee actually pays.
Even in this year's harvest of motions, there are about a dozen requests regarding the reporting of employer contributions on the payslip. It is fundamentally a democratic issue, because if one does not know how much tax one pays, it is difficult to make demands regarding the welfare one can expect. Letting people live in ignorance is a way to indirectly increase the acceptance of a high-tax society.
Surveys have shown that 70 percent of wage earners are not aware that their salary is 31.42 percent higher and that the difference is called employer contributions. Therefore, it is positive that the government has appointed an inquiry on the obligation for authorities to report employer contributions on the payslip. Private companies should, however, not be forced to do this as it could mean increased administration and thus increased costs. But many companies already choose today to completely voluntarily report the employer contributions on the payslip to increase the understanding of the total wage costs for the employees.
Mr. Speaker! The Social Democrats' reservation expresses disappointment that the investigation regarding exit tax - or, in other words, a new system for an effective capital taxation of natural persons who move out and cease to be unlimited tax liable in Sweden or who, according to a tax treaty, are granted residence in another contracting state - has been abandoned. This is entirely in line with the government's intention that tax rules should be simplified but not worsened.
Those who, on the other hand, are happy about the government's decision, which was otherwise made as early as the autumn of 2022, are those who remember how it went last time when the Social Democratic and Green Party government tried to introduce an exit tax in 2017. That proposal, which was based on a memorandum from Skatteverket, was completely ill-conceived and received massive criticism, among other things because Skatteverket had not considered how the proposal would hit Swedish companies, i.e., the same companies that create jobs and generate tax revenues. This unfortunate proposal would in many cases make generational shifts in small-scale companies impossible, hinder the supply of skills for Swedish companies, increase the administrative burden, and lead to increased uncertainty.
The strong criticism resulted in the then Finance Minister Magdalena Andersson withdrawing the proposal in 2018. It is therefore truly nothing to mourn that the investigation was abandoned this time as well.
It is not the case that capital gains are not taxed today, on the contrary. According to today's regulations, Sweden has the right to tax such gains when they are realized up to ten years after a Swede moves abroad. This must, however, be regulated in the tax treaty that Sweden has with the respective country.
Mr. Speaker! I believe we all here in the chamber agree that fraud should be combated - fraud against the elderly, telephone fraud, welfare fraud and tax fraud. Many of these frauds have become possible because we have a deficient population registration.
The list of crimes enabled by incorrect population registration is long and covers everything from human trafficking to environmental crimes. Therefore, it is positive that the government, at the end of December 2023, took the next step in the implementation of a census and tasked Skatteverket with regularly compiling a situational overview of the population.
The national situation report shall provide a consolidated picture of those who are registered in the population register and those who have coordination numbers, and of how these coordination numbers have been used. It shall also provide information on groups that are in Sweden without being registered in the population register or even having the right to be here. In order to choke criminals' finances and stop serious organized crime, we need to know who is in Sweden, and if they do not have the right to be here, they shall be deported.
Mr. Speaker! Some of the motions concern persons with protected information. Over 26,000 people live with so-called protected personal data. Many of these are women who have fled from a violent man. Their situation is very vulnerable. Living with protected personal data creates great problems in everyday life both for the women and for their children.
Last year, the Swedish Tax Agency was commissioned by the government to establish a national structure for cooperation and information dissemination to other authorities in order to contribute to a uniform, secure, and efficient handling of protected personal data. It is not acceptable for authorities to mistakenly or knowingly disclose the protected data. It is not acceptable that women and their children should live in constant fear of having their data exposed.
In the autumn, the government gave the Gender Equality Authority the mandate to coordinate and follow up on the authorities' work with protected personal data. The mandate was partially reported on Monday, and it appears from the report that social services, healthcare, and the justice system are most commonly occurring among the actors that cause clearings.
Sweden is a country that, compared to others, has high taxes. Only our Nordic neighboring countries and a few more European countries have a higher tax ratio than Sweden. Regarding this situation, we may have different political views, but there is a fairly high acceptance of this among the Swedish people. That acceptance is, however, based on people being able to feel trust in the social contract—that the welfare system works, that our authorities work and act in a way that is perceived as legally secure, that our population registry works, and that our authorities do not leak protected information about vulnerable people. When this fails, people feel betrayed because the social contract is no longer fulfilled by the public sector. Then, naturally, the willingness to pay taxes diminishes.
Why should one pay for something that one does not receive or that does not work? For this reason, at least, the issues that today's debate concerns are extremely important. Handling these is an important part of the government's work to get Sweden in order.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.