Conference turris::scandia

I've heard (very informally) that in Sweden now the average person pays
up to 70% of his income in taxes now.  (the whole picture)

When you have full information about these new proposals, please explain
to me the whole picture of how much a person under the new plan would pay
in taxes.  Thanks

Chad

It has been a long time since I read this conference now!

This is not really true. The direct income taxes people pay is going down.
70 % could have been right in 1988.

The plan for the tax reform going into effect 1991 is that the maximum
"marginalskatt" people pay should be 50%. This is the tax rate you pay on
an income increase. This is at a "Kommunalskatt" (roughly "county" tax) of 30%.

I think the "marginal tax" is something like 63% during 1990.

At the same time some other taxes change. Especially many of the indirect taxes.
In january the tax on gas increased quite a lot, and March 1 they also
added VAT on gas. It is quite expensive to drive a car in Sweden now.

You should also remember that the VAT (MOMS in Swedish) is quite high, 23.46%.

Another thing to consider is that your employer really is paying a lot more
in various taxes and mandatory fees (mandatory pension fees...). This amount is
about 40% of the salaries paid.

	Olof

    From: [email protected] (Lars-Henrik Eriksson)
    Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
    Date: 12 Nov 90 08:47:44 GMT
    Organization: Swedish Institute of Computer Science
 
    In article <[email protected]> [email protected]
    (Frank L  Ross) writes:

 > The Swedish equivalent to amt is laen,
 > which, of course, geographically, are much larger. In Sweden, however, the
 > tax is not split between kommun and laen, but all the taxes (rate is ca. 30%)
 > is levied by the kommun.
 
    Actually, there are three different administrative divisions of Sweden: 
    "laen", "landsting" and "kommun". A "landsting" is best translated as 
    "county" and "kommun" as "municipality" or "town". Both landsting and 
    kommuner take income tax, and it is levied separately. Usually,
    however, you  talk about the two taxes as if they were a single
    "municipality tax". To be  precise, the municipality tax includes a
    third part which is taken by the  state church parishes. As you say,
    the total of these taxes amounts to about  30%. 
 
    Both landsting and kommuner (and state church parishes) are governed by 
    elected assemblies and (at least in principle) decide on their own
    taxes.
 
    The division into "laen" is the state administration division of
    Sweden. Thus  a "laen" do not take any taxes for themselves, although
    they do handle the  actual taxation, both state and municipal.
 
Lars-Henrik Eriksson                           Internet: [email protected]
Swedish Institute of Computer Science          Phone (intn'l): +46 8 752 15 09
Box 1263                                       Telefon (nat'l): 08 - 752 15 09
S-164 28  KISTA, SWEDEN

    From: [email protected] (Thomas Sj|land)
    Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
    Subject: kommun vs. landsting in Sweden
    Date: 22 Nov 90 17:30:53 GMT
    Organization: Swedish Institute of Computer Science, Kista
 
 
    The division of political power in Sweden between the three different
    authorities, "parliament", "kommun" and "landsting" is claimed by some
    to cause a lot of problems due to division of responsibility. Therefore
    i.e. the conservatives are suggesting to simply take away the
    "landsting".
 
    Another perhaps interesting fact is that there is a "tax" on the
    "communes" which means that the local authority that runs the "commun"
    has to pay a fee to the country government which in turn hands it over
    to "communes" with a bad economy in order to make the costs of e.g. the
    social security system more equally distributed between municipalities
    ("communes"). the "tax" is popularly known as  the "Robin Hood" tax.
 
    The conservatives who find many of their voters in "communes" with a
    low per capita cost in social security (surprised ?) are of course
    acting against this "tax". The tax tends to cause more spending on the
    "commune" level.
 
 
    --
    Thomas Sjoeland
    SICS, PO Box 1263, S-164 28 KISTA, SWEDEN
    Tel: +46 8 752 15 42  Fax: +46 8 751 72 30
    Internet: [email protected] 
    .......

    As this was the only topic on taxes a quick search could find, I
    thought I'd mention that today is D-day here in Sweden. 
    
    That is, the day of your tax return, when you have to hand
    in a form where you declare all your income, capital and property.
    
    The funny thing here is that although most of us Swedes grumble
    and mutter about Big Brother wanting to know every little detail
    about our private economy, we still manage to make the actual
    D-day a real festival!
    
    Of course you can send your tax return by mail beforehand, but
    for many of us (at least in Stockholm), it's kind of a tradition to 
    save it to the last day, and then go down to the Tax Authority
    building in Stockholm to deliver it by hand into specially put
    up boxes. They're open until midnight, and some people make it
    a sport to try to be the last one in. 
    
    I just came back from there, and at about 11 pm the sidewalks
    were really crowded with people. Lots of cars driving by slowly,
    they have special drive-in delivery for the forms also.
    A big brass band were playing outside (I heard "When The Saints
    Go Marching In", could that be symbolical?), hot dog sellers
    everywhere and free hot "�rtsoppa" (yellow split pea soup with
    pork) to warm us up. It's a couple of degrees below zero, and
    we have snow, at last!
    
    All in all, this is almost like a carnival! I guess it's hard
    to imagine any other than us Swedes making a carnival out of
    filing our tax returns! 
    
    Hans

    From: [email protected] (PHIL DIVALERIO)
    Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
    Subject: Norwegian Taxes?
    Date: Wed, 17 May 95 07:09:00 +0100
    Organization: Norway Professional PCBoard - +47 51544306 ISDN +47 51542394
 
    Not a very easy question to answer because there are so many 
    variables, and so many taxes.  Basically, it's 28%, but if you add in 
    all the extra little goodies that the Stortinget has piled on, the 
    effective marginal rate can get pretty high.  Maybe for safety's sake 
    it's best to avoid earning income here.  Life is much easier if you 
    put yourself in the care of the welfare system.
    
    You've got: (1995 #s)
 
     1) Trygdeavgift    lav sats  -    3% (pensjoner)
                        mellom sats -  7,8% (small business, farmers)
                        hoy sats -  10,7% (fat cats)
 
     2)  Toppskatt til staten
          (tax based on gross income - no deductions)
 
                        Tax-free under 212.000 for class 1
                        Tax-free under 257.000 for class 2
 
                        9,5% on first 27.000 over for class 1
                        9,5% on first 11.000 over for class 2
 
     3)  Tax on regular
           earnings     (tax based on net income, with deductions)
 
                        28% on excess over 22.600 for class 1
                        28% on excess over 45.200 for class 2
 
     4)  Wealth tax     Tax free up to 120.000 for classes 1 and 2
 
                        1,17% up to 869.999 for class 1
                        1,15% up to 869.999 for class 2
 
                        1,17% above 869.999 plus 15kr per 1000
                           for class 1
 
                        1,15% above 869.999 plus 15kr per 1000
                           for class 2
 
      5) Housing tax    This is a special tax on people who own
                        housing that comes in addition to the wealth
                        tax.  The idea is that people who own their
                        homes have a special priviledge that whould
                        be taxed.  They don't miss a trick here.
                        This tax is actually calculated by defining
                        housing as income and then adding it to regular
                        income, which is then taxed along with other
                        income.
�                       
                        Housing:
                        2,5% x value up to 440.000 with 50.000
                          deduction
                        5% for value above 440.000
 
                        Vacation homes (hytta):
                        2,5% x value up to 440.000 (no deduction)
                        5% for value above 440.000
                        
                        
�
     Whinner fradrag:
        
        In addition, the Norwegian tax laws permit special deductions
        based on where you live.  This special tax rate applies to      
        people who live in Finnmark and Nord-Troms (where the           
        whinner rate quite high, as I've read).
 
     And just to round things off:
 
        VAT (MVA): 23%
 
    Plus, I suppose there's a host of other things you could call taxes.  
    There's the ever popular wine monopolies, which add a big chunk in 
    taxes to wines and liquors, making what should be cheap $4 Portugese
    wine into overpriced $10 Portugese wine.  In all of Norway, there's 
    only about 100 legal outlets for purchasing fire water.  Lots can be 
    found in Oslo, of course, where the law is made.  They're pretty scarce 
    in the countryside where distilling is popular and illegal.
 
    Petrol tax makes Norwegian petrol among the most expensive in the 
    world, which is a shame considering how much of the stuff they pump 
    here.  Our hands are clean, though.  Our wallets are empty, but our 
    hands are clean.
 
    Believe it or not, there's an investment tax on the value of  capital
    goods you buy for business (7%).  For years in the US they've  been
    discussing whether or not to bring back the investment tax credit,  but
    such a thing is unheard of in Norway where investment is seen a a  bad
    thing subject to taxation.
 
    But the health care is free!  Sort of.
 
    Phil Di Valerio

---
 � 1st 1.11 � Nothing can be made foolproof, as fools are so ingenious.
 
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-<Norway Professional PCBoard>-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
= 10 GIG, 1100 conferences, 9 networks, 6 BBS nodes, PCBoard 15.21/M 10 =
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

    To: International Swedish Interest discussion list
    From: Bo Persson <[email protected]>
    Subj:   Swedish Taxes
    
    The 'myth' of the high swedish taxes tells you how it used to be. I'd
    like to tell you how it looks now from Sweden.
    
    We use to have a tax system that the minister of finance (Kjell-Olof
    Feldt) called 'insane', when he had to introduce special rules that put
    a ceiling on the taxes at 80% of your income (or, in some extreme
    cases, at 85%!). People having a low cash income, but who owned real
    estate or shares that didn't pay off to good, could otherwise have had
    to pay more than 100% of their income in tax...
    
    Even 'ordinary' people, like me working overtime, on the night shift at
    Volvo, suffered from the high marginal taxes. Making extra money
    'promoted' you to the next higher tax column. The MORE overtime you
    worked, the LESS you made per hour! Consider the 'joy' of making an
    extra 1000, just to find out that it meant 300 to you and 700 in tax!
    
    Through 'the great tax reform' in the early 90's, we got rid of most of
    that, by a system where you pay only local taxes up to a certain income
    and then an additional, flat, 20% state tax on the part of your income
    that is above that point. Like Peter Stany told us earlier, most people
    only pay local taxes, in my case 31%.
    
    In order not to raise the income tax ("read my lips,.."), we have been
    'blessed' with some additional 'fees' for the health insurance and
    unemployment insurance (not that it has ever been an insurance, but is
    almost entirely payed by public funding). Anyway, this accounts for an
    additional 2%, making me pay a total of about 33%.
    
    You have to make a lot (from a swedish view) to get to the highest tax
    rates. You reach 50% income tax at about $10.000 a month and it then
    levels off at around 52% above $15.000 a month. Most swedes believe
    that with an income like that, you can very well afford to pay your
    taxes.
    
    
    Bo Persson
    [email protected]