Attempted tax dodge ends up costing Swedish firms dearly
Published: 26 Dec 09 09:16 CET | Print version
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/24060/20091226/
Several hundred Swedish companies will have to pay back a total of half a billion kronor ($70 million) in back taxes after having moved funds to Cyprus in order to evade taxes, reported Swedish Television (SVT).
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During a raid of the consulting office by the Swedish Tax Authority (Skatteverket), authorities discovered information that revealed that more than 400 individuals had used the same scheme.
Since it has come to light that their companies in Cyprus were just a smokescreen, the companies involved have been slapped with back taxes.
“Most of them are flimsy set ups without any real business behind them. In those cases, we suspect that it might be a question of tax evasion,” Jan-Erik Bäckman, head of analysis at Skatteverket, told SVT.
What do you think? Leave your comment below.
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At least with the Cosa Nostra "looking out" for you, they dont pretend to be anything else but criminals, sometimes I'd appreciate the same sort of honesty from Skatteverket......!
Merry X-mas
First. This is Skatteverket, side of the story and does not tell the other side. All defendants should hire lawyers and fight skatteverket tooth and nail.
Money goes where it is treated best. Taxed money in Sweden goes to support a social infrastructure that is cracked, falling apart, and not able to cope with the modern day needs of it's citizens.......hence, capital should be rerouted to economies that are more efficient and beneficial to it's citizenry.....if the money is being funneled to cyprus...so be it...if its a better haven to manage money from then Sweden needs to learn how to compete and be attractive for investors........
This story is a double failure by Sweden.....keep it up...in a few years you will only have clients of the state left living here.
Skatteverket may not like what these companies are doing and the companys may only have the holding companies in Cyprus because of its more business friendly tax rules. But as Cyprus is part of the EU and it's laws must be inline with the EU, then I would suspect that Skatteverket could have a lot of trouble winning court cases against these companies. It would be a different matter if these holding companies were in tax haven countries outside of the EU.
This does sound like a case of scare and hope.
the 'fyfan' idiot tax systems, kills enterprising people, look at those small business, one of my friend is running such, he said, he only want to earn his salary and pay some lousy tax every month, so his social benefits and pension will be guaranteed, that's all, because he do not see any courage to work hard and make more thus pay more tax. What a sad country today's Sweden is!