Sweden Publishes Report and Draft Legislation for Financial Activities Tax

On 7 November 2016, the Swedish Ministry of Finance published a report and draft legislation for the introduction of a financial activities tax. The report was prepared by a government committee appointed to in May 2015 to look into a tax on the financial sector to offset the tax advantage the sector receives from its general exemption from value added tax (VAT).

Due to the technical and fiscal difficulties of appropriately levying an indirect tax on financial service transactions, the repor…