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This sounds surprisingly logical to me as a Swede. Here you can be taxed for income even if you didn’t receive anything at all. Take for instance a company offi

This sounds surprisingly logical to me as a Swede. Here you can be taxed for income even if you didn’t receive anything at all. Take for instance a company office with a canteen exclusively for employees. Let’s say the canteen charges 20% under market price for a meal. In that case the employees can be taxed for having access to that canteen, even if they don’t eat there. This access is considered a taxable income.

mdekkers 3y ago
> This access is considered a taxable income. Sounds like this meets the definition of racketeering
- tux3 3y ago
  There is no coercion or deception in this situation, so it can't be racketeering. Unless you want to classify all taxation as an extortion racket. It's just a bad tax policy that creates weird incentives ("use the canteen even if you don't need it"). Let's keep the word racket for criminal enterprises and antivirus companies.
  - mdekkers 3y ago
    No coercion? Try not paying it.
    - tux3 3y ago
      Right. But this position applies equally to all taxes. So that's a general "taxation is theft" type position. Which is fine in general, just not specific to this particular tax.
      - mdekkers 3y ago
        I don’t believe all taxes are equal, or bad. But some are terrible, such as this one.
        tux3 3y ago
        I agree this one is terrible, but I don't think it's because this one is racketeering. If we think this tax is a racket, we should equally think that all taxes are a racket. That's because your "Try not paying it" argument applies to all taxes. If we think this tax is uniquely bad, there should be another reason that it's bad. Which is my point.
        kazinator 3y ago
        It depends on the interest rate. A 5% interest may be a legitimate loan; 70% interest is in the territory of loan sharking.
      - kazinator 3y ago
        The percentage of a nonzero tax off a zero amount is staggering though.
kazinator 3y ago
Just because it happens in Sweden and you're a Swede doesn't have to make it logical to you.
- apelapan 3y ago
  It is very common for Swedes to not fully and properly understand the general logic and mechanisms of our tax system. The general principles in play are that 1) any benefit is taxed according to its equivalent cash value. (How much money would the employee need to pay to get an equivalent thing, if they paid out of pocket and without any cooperation of the employer) 2) A benefit "occurs" by being granted, not by being consumed. In the cateen situation there is also a special simplification rule in play, where a generic cash value is defined each year for breakfast, lunch and dinner that is to be used as basis for taxation (almost) no matter what the actual costs for the meal is.
fransje26 3y ago
> Let’s say the canteen charges 20% under market price for a meal. In that case the employees can be taxed for having access to that canteen, even if they don’t eat there. This access is considered a taxable income. I actually fail to see what is logical here. And I would go further by saying it is neither logical, nor fair. First the basic point. Why should an employee be taxed for a service he is not making use of. That's a government trying to get more tax income than what they are entitled to, hidden under the guise of simplification. We are equal under the law, and therefore, theoretically, we are equal under taxes. It is irrelevant that someone has, or does not have access to such a canteen, if they are not making use of the facility, the net outcome is the same, and therefore, the taxation should be the same. And then a point could be made about the relevancy of taxation in the canteen example. (Although it should not be forgotten that it was just a randomly quantified example for the sake of argument). But let's say that company A decides to provide a canteen, with food sold at cost price to its employees. This turns out to be 20% cheaper than eating in a random other canteen "at market price" (i.e. charging you for cost price + company B profit). Now you are actually taxing the fact that company A decided to make the effort to setup a canteen, hire cooks/canteen employees, probably make a qualitative effort to offer better food, and not seek profit on the effort, when compared to company B, offering food at a higher price as it includes profit. Congratulations, in a context of decreasing food quality offered by catering services world-wide, your taxation approach just further de-incentivized potential quality over taxation income. Further fully disregarding the fact that to offer a catering service, company A had to make investments, is employing personnel, buying food, etc, and is, therefore, already contributing more to global tax revenues for the state. Furthermore, you are also unfairly putting non-profit catering services at a disadvantage, as, they too will be taxed more, as they are also offering their food below "market price". (Not too far-fetched, as such efforts are being set-up, with success, for school canteens, focusing on local, organic food, at operating cost-price)
- withinboredom 3y ago
  laws can say whatever they want to say, nothing says it has to be fair. ¯\(°_o)/¯
  - 3y ago
formerly_proven 3y ago
It would also only be logical to tax the income you could earn at work, not the income you actually earn. This way you are incentivized to actually give it your best in salary negotiations. E.g. the State Income Commission determines what a SWE ought to make (indexed to inflation) and all SWEs get taxed based on that. Simple, fair, equal and even equitable. And a lot less bureaucracy to boot!
Too 3y ago
A more realistic example is parking. If a company in a high demand downtown area offers discounted parking for all their employees, that can be seen as a benefit worth equivalent to what it would cost to park next door. Even for those that don’t drive to work. The benefit can be constrained to individuals, but then you usually get into fairness arguments and most people rather take the equivalent salary increase instead if given the option. Either way, it is not going to be fair. For this reason, most companies simply rather not offer free parking.

mdekkers 3y ago

> This access is considered a taxable income. Sounds like this meets the definition of racketeering

tux3 3y ago
There is no coercion or deception in this situation, so it can't be racketeering. Unless you want to classify all taxation as an extortion racket. It's just a bad tax policy that creates weird incentives ("use the canteen even if you don't need it"). Let's keep the word racket for criminal enterprises and antivirus companies.
- mdekkers 3y ago
  No coercion? Try not paying it.
  - tux3 3y ago
    Right. But this position applies equally to all taxes. So that's a general "taxation is theft" type position. Which is fine in general, just not specific to this particular tax.
    - mdekkers 3y ago
      I don’t believe all taxes are equal, or bad. But some are terrible, such as this one.
      - tux3 3y ago
        I agree this one is terrible, but I don't think it's because this one is racketeering. If we think this tax is a racket, we should equally think that all taxes are a racket. That's because your "Try not paying it" argument applies to all taxes. If we think this tax is uniquely bad, there should be another reason that it's bad. Which is my point.
        kazinator 3y ago
        It depends on the interest rate. A 5% interest may be a legitimate loan; 70% interest is in the territory of loan sharking.
    - kazinator 3y ago
      The percentage of a nonzero tax off a zero amount is staggering though.

kazinator 3y ago

Just because it happens in Sweden and you're a Swede doesn't have to make it logical to you.

apelapan 3y ago
It is very common for Swedes to not fully and properly understand the general logic and mechanisms of our tax system. The general principles in play are that 1) any benefit is taxed according to its equivalent cash value. (How much money would the employee need to pay to get an equivalent thing, if they paid out of pocket and without any cooperation of the employer) 2) A benefit "occurs" by being granted, not by being consumed. In the cateen situation there is also a special simplification rule in play, where a generic cash value is defined each year for breakfast, lunch and dinner that is to be used as basis for taxation (almost) no matter what the actual costs for the meal is.

fransje26 3y ago

> Let’s say the canteen charges 20% under market price for a meal. In that case the employees can be taxed for having access to that canteen, even if they don’t eat there. This access is considered a taxable income. I actually fail to see what is logical here. And I would go further by saying it is neither logical, nor fair. First the basic point. Why should an employee be taxed for a service he is not making use of. That's a government trying to get more tax income than what they are entitled to, hidden under the guise of simplification. We are equal under the law, and therefore, theoretically, we are equal under taxes. It is irrelevant that someone has, or does not have access to such a canteen, if they are not making use of the facility, the net outcome is the same, and therefore, the taxation should be the same. And then a point could be made about the relevancy of taxation in the canteen example. (Although it should not be forgotten that it was just a randomly quantified example for the sake of argument). But let's say that company A decides to provide a canteen, with food sold at cost price to its employees. This turns out to be 20% cheaper than eating in a random other canteen "at market price" (i.e. charging you for cost price + company B profit). Now you are actually taxing the fact that company A decided to make the effort to setup a canteen, hire cooks/canteen employees, probably make a qualitative effort to offer better food, and not seek profit on the effort, when compared to company B, offering food at a higher price as it includes profit. Congratulations, in a context of decreasing food quality offered by catering services world-wide, your taxation approach just further de-incentivized potential quality over taxation income. Further fully disregarding the fact that to offer a catering service, company A had to make investments, is employing personnel, buying food, etc, and is, therefore, already contributing more to global tax revenues for the state. Furthermore, you are also unfairly putting non-profit catering services at a disadvantage, as, they too will be taxed more, as they are also offering their food below "market price". (Not too far-fetched, as such efforts are being set-up, with success, for school canteens, focusing on local, organic food, at operating cost-price)

withinboredom 3y ago
laws can say whatever they want to say, nothing says it has to be fair. ¯\(°_o)/¯
- 3y ago

formerly_proven 3y ago

It would also only be logical to tax the income you could earn at work, not the income you actually earn. This way you are incentivized to actually give it your best in salary negotiations. E.g. the State Income Commission determines what a SWE ought to make (indexed to inflation) and all SWEs get taxed based on that. Simple, fair, equal and even equitable. And a lot less bureaucracy to boot!

Too 3y ago

A more realistic example is parking. If a company in a high demand downtown area offers discounted parking for all their employees, that can be seen as a benefit worth equivalent to what it would cost to park next door. Even for those that don’t drive to work. The benefit can be constrained to individuals, but then you usually get into fairness arguments and most people rather take the equivalent salary increase instead if given the option. Either way, it is not going to be fair. For this reason, most companies simply rather not offer free parking.