Anders Borg

"The venture capitalists did not feel they had received that. One of the things they were most upset about was precisely that the agency had not been sufficiently proactive. They argue that they have been doing things the same way for twenty years, so why has no one said anything until now? The Director General of the Swedish Tax Agency, Ingemar Hansson, has worked with taxes all his life. He helped prepare the ”Tax Reform of the Century” in 1990–91, and has served under nearly seven finance ministers of various political affiliations, most recently Anders Borg. He likes the subject because it affects the economy. A number nerd who plays golf when he is not calculating the nation’s taxes. Hansson formulates the conflict like this: – Some have said that we changed the legal application, but that’s not true. Since we have not investigated the venture capitalists, they have not been actively approved, but psychologically they may have perceived it as such because they have not been rejected. But most citizens probably consider an approved tax return to be just that—approved. The philosopher Adam Smith established as early as 1776, in ”Wealth of Nations,” that even the tax authority has certain obligations. “The tax which each individual is bound to pay ought to be certain, and not arbitrary. The time of payment, the manner of payment, the quantity to be paid, ought all to be clear and plain to the contributor, and to every other person.” But Swedish tax law is not precise. It says that certain actions intended to evade taxes constitute tax avoidance. This means that one not only has to follow the rules of the game, but sometimes also its intentions."

"The Tax Agency’s goal was for its officials to be perceived as support for the taxpayers; they should get help to do the right thing. That was the message. The venture capitalists did not feel they had received that. One of the things they were most upset about was precisely that the agency had not been sufficiently proactive. They argue that they have been doing things the same way for twenty years, so why has no one said anything until now? The Director General of the Swedish Tax Agency, Ingemar Hansson, has worked with taxes all his life. He helped prepare the ”Tax Reform of the Century” in 1990–91, and has served under nearly seven finance ministers of various political affiliations, most recently Anders Borg. He likes the subject because it affects the economy. A number nerd who plays golf when he is not calculating the nation’s taxes. Hansson formulates the conflict like this: – Some have said that we changed the legal application, but that’s not true. Since we have not investigated the venture capitalists, they have not been actively approved, but psychologically they may have perceived it as such because they have not been rejected. But most citizens probably consider an approved tax return to be just that—approved. The philosopher Adam Smith established as early as 1776, in ”Wealth of Nations,” that even the tax authority has certain obligations. “The tax which each individual is bound to pay ought to be certain, and not arbitrary. The time of payment, the manner of payment, the quantity to be paid, ought all to be clear and plain to the contributor, and to every other person.” But Swedish tax law is not precise. It says that certain actions intended to evade taxes constitute tax avoidance. This means that one not only has to follow the rules of the game, but sometimes also its intentions."