{"id":417255,"date":"2026-01-19T19:39:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T19:39:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/417255\/"},"modified":"2026-01-19T19:39:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T19:39:11","slug":"swedish-pensioners-explain-how-abolishing-the-wealth-tax-changed-their-country","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/417255\/","title":{"rendered":"Swedish pensioners explain how abolishing the wealth tax changed their country"},"content":{"rendered":"

For much of the 20th century, Sweden enjoyed a justifiable reputation as one of Europe\u2019s most egalitarian countries. Yet over the past two decades, it has transformed into what journalist and author Andreas Cervenka<\/a> calls a \u201cparadise for the super-rich\u201d.<\/p>\n

Today, Sweden has one of the world\u2019s highest ratios of dollar billionaires<\/a>, and is home to numerous \u201cunicorn\u201d startup companies<\/a> worth at least US$1 billion (\u00a3742 million), including the payment platform Klarna and audio streaming service Spotify.<\/p>\n

The abolition of the wealth tax (f\u00f6rm\u00f6genhetsskatten) 20 years ago is part of this story \u2013 along with, in the same year, the introduction of generous tax deductions<\/a> for housework and home improvement projects. Two decades on, the number of Swedish homes that employ cleaners is one marker of it being an increasingly two-tier country.<\/p>\n

As part of my anthropological research<\/a> into the social relationships that different tax systems produce<\/a>, I have been working with pensioners<\/a> in the southern suburbs of Sweden\u2019s capital, Stockholm, to learn how they feel about the decreasing levels of taxation in their later lives.<\/p>\n

This trend has been coupled with a gradual shrinking of the welfare state. Many of my interviewees regret that Sweden no longer has a collective project to build a more cohesive society.<\/p>\n

\u201cUs pensioners can see the destruction of what we built, what was started when we were small children,\u201d Kjerstin, 74, explained. \u201cI was born after the end of the war and built this society through my life, together with my fellow citizens. [But] with taxes being lowered and the taking away of our social security \u2026 we\u2019re not building anything together now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sweden\u2019s gini coefficient, the most common way to measure inequality, has reached 0.3 in recent years<\/a> (with 0 reflecting total equality and 1 total inequality), up from around 0.2 in the 1980s. The EU as a whole is at 0.29. \u201cThere are now 42 billionaires in Sweden \u2013 it\u2019s gone up a lot,\u201d Bengt, 70, told me. \u201cWhere did they come from? This didn\u2019t used to be a country where people could easily become this rich.\u201d<\/p>\n

But like other pensioners I met, Bengt acknowledged his peer group\u2019s role in this shift. \u201cI belong to a generation that remembers how we built Sweden to become a welfare state, but so much has changed. The thing is, we didn\u2019t protest this. We didn\u2019t realise we were becoming this country of rich people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Opposite of the American dream<\/p>\n

Wealth taxation was introduced in Sweden<\/a> in 1911, with the amount due based initially on a combination of wealth and income. Around the same time, some of the first moves towards the Swedish welfare state were made \u2013 notably, the introduction of the state pension in 1913.<\/p>\n

The term used to describe this, folkemmet (\u201cthe people\u2019s home\u201d), denoted comfort and security for all in equal measure. It was arguably the ideological opposite of the American dream \u2013 its aims not exceptionalism but reasonable living standards and universal services.<\/p>\n

After the second world war, the wealth tax \u2013 now separated from income \u2013 was raised again in several steps up to a historical high of a 4% marginal rate for wealthy individuals in the 1980s, although actual tax burden is is less clear due to complex exemption rules. But total revenues generated from the tax were still relatively low. As a share of Sweden\u2019s annual GDP, it never exceeded 0.4%<\/a> in the postwar period. <\/p>\n

By the end of the 1980s, the political winds were starting to change in Sweden, in line with the shift to privatisation of public services and deregulation of financial markets in several European countries, including the UK under Margaret Thatcher, and the US. <\/p>\n

One recurrent criticism of Sweden\u2019s wealth tax was that it was regressive, taxing middle-class wealth (mainly housing and financial assets) while exempting the wealthiest people who owned large firms or held high-up positions in listed companies. Another criticism was that the wealth tax drove tax avoidance, especially in the form of capital flight to offshore tax havens.<\/p>\n

\"Alt<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2018We\u2019re not building anything together now: one of the author\u2019s interviewees in their home in Stockholm.
\n Miranda Sheild Johansson<\/a>, Author provided (no reuse)<\/p>\n

While a wealth tax might appear to signal their country\u2019s commitment to socioeconomic equality, my interviewees said it wasn\u2019t something they really thought about much until it was abolished in 2006<\/a> by Sweden\u2019s then-rightwing government, following the axing of inheritance tax a year earlier by the previous social democratic government.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the wealth tax was abolished,\u201d Marianne, 77, told me, \u201cI wasn\u2019t thinking about millionaires being given a handout, because \u2026 we didn\u2019t have lots of rich aristocrats who owned everything. Abolishing the wealth and inheritance tax seemed like a practical thing, not so political.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marianne and other pensioners I talked to all told a story of the welfare state having been built through communal effort, as opposed to it being a Robin Hood project \u2013 of taking from the rich to give to the poor. This notion of the Swedish welfare state as having been built by equals, by an initial largely rural and poor population, arguably distracted these pensioners from questions of wealth accumulation.<\/p>\n

While Sweden still taxes property and various forms of capital income<\/a>, in hindsight, many of my elderly interviewees now regard the abolition of the wealth tax \u201con their watch\u201d as a crucial step in reshaping Swedish society away from a social democracy welfare state towards something new \u2013 a place of billionaires and increased social disintegration. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think about my children, my two daughters who are working and have young families,\u201d Jan, 72, told me. \u201cAs children, they were provided for by the welfare state, they went to good schools and had access to football and drama class and the dentist \u2013 but now I worry that society is going to get worse for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

As with others I spoke to, Jan showed regret at his own role in this change. \u201cI now think that is partly my fault,\u201d he said. \u201cWe got lazy and complacent, thought the Swedish welfare state was secure, didn\u2019t worry about abolishing the wealth tax, didn\u2019t think it was going to change anything \u2026 but I think it has.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018A society that is more humane\u2019<\/p>\n

My research suggests the impacts of wealth taxes, or absence of them, are not only about fiscal revenue streams and wealth redistribution. They have wider social ramifications, and can be foundational to people\u2019s vision of society.<\/p>\n

Only three European countries currently levy<\/a> a whole wealth tax: Norway<\/a>, Spain<\/a> and Switzerland<\/a>. In addition, France<\/a>, Italy<\/a>, Belgium<\/a> and the Netherlands<\/a> impose wealth taxes<\/a> on selected assets, but not on an person\u2019s overall wealth.<\/p>\n

In Sweden at least, the question today isn\u2019t just whether wealth taxes work or not, but about what kind of society they project \u2013 one of folkhemmet, or a paradise for the rich.<\/p>\n

\u201cTax was just natural [when] I grew up in the 1950s,\u201d Kjerstin recalled. \u201cI remember thinking when I was in second grade, that I will always be taken care of, that I didn\u2019t ever have to worry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reflecting on how different living in Sweden feels today, she said: \u201cNow people don\u2019t want to pay tax \u2013 sometimes even I don\u2019t want to pay tax. Everyone is thinking about what they get back and how to get rich, instead of about building something together.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think you can say: \u2018I pay this much in taxes and therefore I should get the same back.\u2019 Instead, you should pay attention to the fact that you live in a society that is more humane, where everyone knows from second grade they\u2019ll be taken care of.\u201d<\/p>\n

Names of research participants have been changed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For much of the 20th century, Sweden enjoyed a justifiable reputation as one of Europe\u2019s most egalitarian countries.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":417256,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[28,147,530],"class_list":{"0":"post-417255","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-personal-finance","10":"tag-personalfinance"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417255\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}