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POLITICS IN SWEDEN

Politics in Sweden: Should we expect tax cuts in the next budget?

Sweden's finance minister Elisabeth Svantesson has declared the battle against inflation won, and Sweden's official inflation figure has dropped below the 2 percent target. Does this mean we can expect tax cuts next year?

Politics in Sweden: Should we expect tax cuts in the next budget?
Elisabeth Svantesson declares the battle against inflation over at a press conference on June 24th. Photo: Lars Schröder/TT

At the end of June, Svantesson declared the battle against inflation won at a press conference, driving the point home with a joint debate article with Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and interviews in the Dagens Nyheter newspaper and on Sweden’s public broadcaster SR. 

“The battle against inflation is won,” she said in a press release. “For that reason we are now focusing on making Sweden richer again.” 

This puts an end to the cautious fiscal policy Svantesson has driven in her 2023 and 2024 budgets. She has thrown Moderate Party supporters none of the juicy tax cuts they normally expect from the party — saying that this would be inflationary — leading to internal grumbling both in the party and outside it. 

The Moderates even paused an automatic tax cut for high earners to finance a tax cut for low earners back in September, raising eyebrows among party colleagues, some of whom accused the government of pushing Social Democrat policies.

READ ALSO: Politics in Sweden: Are the Moderates leading a ‘socialist government’?

So is Svantesson now going to deliver on tax cuts for all, and if so, what will that mean for your tax bills? 

What tax proposals are out there? 

Despite the triumphant tone, Svantesson was reluctant to give details of which tax cuts she was planing for the 2025 budget on the table this autumn. 

“This needs to be negotiated,” she told the Dagens Nyheter newspaper. “We will come back with exactly which proposals will be part of the autumn budget but we are agreed that we want to strengthen households’ purchasing power.” 

But in the spring, the government has announced a barrage of potential tax cuts, with several put out for consultation, including: 

  • An increase in the employment tax credit or jobbskatteavdraget, which is an income tax credit for anyone with a job. This she said would reduce the annual tax bill of working people by 1,900 kronor and cost a total of 8.1 billion kronor.
  • An extension of ‘expert tax relief’, a special tax regime designed to encourage foreign researchers and highly skilled workers to come to Sweden. 
  • Changes to the 3:12 rules on the taxation of dividends from closely held or family-owned companies (although this was proposed to come into force at the start of 2026).
  • No tax on the first 300,000 kronor saved in an ISK account. 

How much of this will get into the 2024 budget? 

Oscar Warglo, tax advisor at PwC, agreed that the declaration that the battle against inflation was at an end increased Svantesson’s leeway to make more agressive tax cuts. 

“Svantesson said in an interview a few months ago that we’ll see which of these we can afford. So they have three rather big amendments to tax law in the pipeline, and if inflation is coming down, hopefully, they will go ahead with all of those,” he said. 

But he suggested that it was wrong to portray the increase in government activity around tax as purely the result of a changed economic situation, as the government are starting to run out of time to bring in tax reductions before the 2026 election.  

“I see it as a bit more political: they need to do some things because they promised to do this when they went to the election and they haven’t done so much. So in a sense, it’s political. They need to do something before we get into the next election year.” 

Politics in Sweden is The Local’s weekly analysis, guide or look ahead to what’s coming up in Swedish politics. Update your newsletter settings to receive it directly to your inbox. 

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CALCULATOR: How much will you gain from the boost to Sweden’s employment tax credit

Sweden's government has announced plans to increase the employment tax credit, a rebate given to everyone who has a job. Here's how much you stand to gain.

CALCULATOR: How much will you gain from the boost to Sweden's employment tax credit

If you have a job in Sweden and do not depend on benefits for your income, you qualify for the jobbskatteavdraget, or employment tax credit, a tax reduction brought in by the government led by the Moderate leader Fredrik Reinfeldt in 2007 to reward those in work. 

The tax was a key part of that government’s focus on the arbetslinje, or work line, the idea behind which is that people should always be better off if they have a job than if they live on benefits. 

As a percentage of income, those on the lowest salaries get the biggest tax reduction, with the maximum tax reduction next year set at 10,633 kronor. 

The government broke down how people in different income brackets will be affected by the increase in jobbskatteavdrag in a document posted alongside the press release.  

The column on the impact of “indexation” or indexeringen, includes the impact of three other tax reductions or thresholds which are adjusted each year in line with developments in salaries and inflation. These include a rise in the so-called skiktgräns, the point at which earnings qualify for state income tax, increases to the so-called grundavdrag, another tax reduction, and also the indexation of the employment tax reduction itself.

In 2024, the government paused the rise in the skiktgräns, but in 2025 it will once again rise with the consumer price index, with the government expecting the threshold to rise from 51,275 kronor a month to 53,590 kronor a month. 

So how much do you stand to get? 

  • Unemployed. If you have had no income from employment at all you are not eligible for the jobbskatteavdrag, and would have received no tax reduction in either 2024 or 2025.
  • Low income. People on incomes of 200,000 kronor a year will see the increase in the tax credit alone reduce their tax by 106 kronor a year compared to what they paid in 2024, and their tax reduced by 716 kronor once indexation is included. 
  • Median and average. People earning the median salary of 462,000 per year will see their tax bill decline by 3,671 kronor, 3,049 kronor of which will come as a result of the increase in the employment tax reduction alone. People earning the average salary of 517,200 kronor will see their tax bill fall by 4,464 kronor compared to what they paid in 2024, with 3,198 kronor coming from the increased employment tax reduction. 
  • High incomes. The biggest increase in the tax reduction will go to those earning between 1 million and 1.5 million kronor a year, with their taxes reducing by 10,633 kronor, the lion’s share of which is coming from the impact of indexation, with only 3,197 kronor coming from the increased employment tax reduction.  

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