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The Local Sweden · 30 min sedan Utrikes

How much are Sweden's parties pledging to cut (or raise) foreigners' tax bills?

If this year's Swedish election is about anything, it's about how much money various parties are promising to put in voters' wallets. Here are the tax cuts (and tax increases) promised by the various parties which might affect foreigners in Sweden.

We've only focused on taxes on income, and have left out the parties' proposals for sales, corporate and energy taxes. Please alert us in the comments if we've missed any important proposals out.

At least 5,000 kronor extra a month for an 'ordinary' family with children

This is the Moderate Party's headline campaign pledge, and while the number is big and satisfyingly round, it's worth prodding it a bit.

The party defines an "ordinary family" as one with two children, but doesn't specify the income. It's worth noting that they're not claiming that this is a "median", or even "mean", family.

Almost half of the saving, 2,000 kronor, comes from "broad tax cuts to incomes, including pension", with each parent receiving 1,000 kronor in tax cuts each. It is calling the tax rebate on pension income a jobbat-avdrag, a rebate for people who have worked.

A further 500 kronor (250 kronor for each parent) comes from a new tax rebate for working parents.

The remaining money, however, will not apply to all parents, as 2,100 kronor comes from scrapping payments for daycare and after-school activities, so won't apply to parents with children over the age of around 11 or 12 or under the age of 1. This is also not actually a tax cut.

A further 1,250 kronor is a tax break on employer-funded travel passes for public transport, so will only impact the minority of parents whose employers pay for a public transport pass.

These all add up to savings of 5,850 kronor.

No income tax for the first 15,300 kronor earned

This is the big tax promise from the Centre Party, which it argues will cut the tax bill of someone earning 25,000 kronor a month by about 1,200 kronor a month, and cut the tax paid by someone working part-time by as much as 2,000 kronor a month.

This is strictly more a tax reform than a tax cut as it will be mostly financed by abolishing the complex system of income tax rebates brought in by Moderate Party-led governments since 2006.

A billionaire's tax

The Left Party and the Green Party are both proposing a billionaire's tax which will apply for people with assets of over a billion kronor. The Green Party is proposing a 2 percent tax on combined assets, which will only apply if the person pays less than the resulting amount in income tax or other taxes. The Social Democrats have promised to block the tax.

Fair tax cuts for ordinary people

The Social Democrats have promised "fair tax cuts for ordinary people", promising to cut taxes for low and middle earners by 1,900 kronor a year and by 1,100 kronor a year for pensioners.

The Christian Democrats are also promising "tax cuts for low and middle earners", without giving concrete numbers.

The Sweden Democrats' campaign pledges are strangely silent on tax, promising only to push for "tax transparency", so that employer contributions are more visible.

Lower state income tax

The Liberal Party has a long-term goal of halving the rate of state income tax from 20 percent to 10 percent, although they say only the first steps will be taken over the next mandate period.

The Moderates, similarly, have a general goal of lowering the rate of state income tax so that everyone, no matter how much they earn, can keep at least half of their income.

As local taxes average around 32 percent, this implies a cut to state income tax of between two and three percentage points. Like the Liberals' promise, this is not a concrete campaign pledge.

As the current threshold for paying state income tax is 55,000 kronor a month, these policies will only affect the top 20 percent of earners.

Raise the tax threshold for an individual savings account

The Moderates, Liberals, and Social Democrats all want to raise the tax threshold on Swedish Investment Savings Accounts (ISK), with the former promising to make the first 500,000 kronor saved tax free, and the Social Democrats setting the threshold at 300,000 kronor.

Relaxing limits to company share options

The Moderate Party and Liberal Party are both proposing to relax the limits on employee share options, which are currently designed only to benefit smaller start-up companies.

Qualified employee stock options (KPO), which the holder only has to pay tax on when the shares received have been sold, are only available for companies with 150 employees or less and a turnover of 280 million kronor or less.

Larger companies can only issue ordinary employee stock options, or personaloptioner, and these are taxed on a running basis. The Moderates have promised to make the system "more generous", without giving details.

Lowering property taxes

The Christian Democrats are proposing to gradually abolish capital gains tax on the sale of houses, by steadily reducing the tax rate by 2 percent a year.

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