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Skatteverket’s Decreased Crime Investigation: A Shocking Trend Impacting Swedish Businesses

  • Crime rates against businesses are increasing in Sweden, but the Swedish Tax Agency’s scrutiny of dishonest actors has dramatically decreased.
  • The number of tax audits conducted by the Swedish Tax Agency has significantly decreased over the years, from over 11,000 in 1995 to 1,562 in 2021.
  • The trend of decreasing control visits and issued tax additions is similar.
  • More and more legitimate businesses are being affected by the increasing crime, costing them around 100 billion SEK per year.
  • Almost half of the businesses, 49%, report that they have been victims of crime at least once.
  • Tax expert Anna Sandberg Nilsson finds it strange that the Tax Agency’s audits are decreasing so drastically in this context.
  • Compared to other countries, Sweden conducts significantly fewer audits. For example, in 2021, Denmark conducted around 65,000 audits, the Netherlands 770,000, and Belgium over 2,000,000, while Sweden only conducted around 1,500.
  • The Swedish Tax Agency argues that the large differences may be due to different measurement methods and reporting practices in different countries.
  • Anna Sandberg Nilsson calls for the Tax Agency to explain the reason behind the decreasing number of audits.

Source: tn.se

Note that this post was (partially) written with the help of AI. It is always useful to review the original source material, and where needed to obtain (local) advice from a specialist.

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