fassy

ah, alright.

I get about 10k points/months on my AMEX and MC. And about 100k for flying. So about 50/50. But of course with 50% of the points from the CC is again business spend and probably would be counted as "paid by the company" as well.

Don't think churning works well. There are just a few cards in Sweden which have a deal with EuroBonus and the sign-up bonus usually can only be applied once every couple of years. Also AMEX in Europe and SEB seem to be quite good at refusing people which churn cards for collecting sign-up benefits.

Probably the same way that all other tax authorities I have ever worked with will look at it. If you operate a business-like outfit which frequently buys good and sells them a bit later - profit or loss - you are in big trouble at some point by operating a business without a company setup, like a sole trader arrangement. Usually they apply some kind of logic by putting down some number of trades a month and value trying to show that this is not the random garage sale but a business. E.g. they won't come after you if you sell a laptop each year, but if you buy and sell one each month... they will argue that it is a business operating without a business "license" and it will hurt a lot.

GUWonder

So I just read that a person from Norway (or some other non-Swedish jurisdiction) in 2017 also got the same SK communication that went out to some Swedes about this situation. Accidental tossing in of people who aren't Swedish tax subjects in 2017?

nacho

Churning (possibly manufactured spend). I saw them using various fintech bank to move $ around, and some of them using one that they can change card payment to a EB card retroactively so gain double points.

There's a limit to sell stuff per year without having to declare to SKV. It doesn't matter whether you are selling them at a loss, you still need to declare that and if they don't do that then they are in trouble. If they sell like this then they will have increase Swish activities which can also flag them. I saw in a FB group that someone account got flagged because that person was moving and was selling a lot of things and received various payments via Swish.

nacho

Exactly. I saw someone booked like 5 business class tickets for leisure from Nov 2021 to Jan 2022 - that's not normal for regular people even if you have 241 vouchers. I saw some of them will sign up for anything that gives points even if they are almost paying for it themselves like the fortum deal - didn't see them mentioning the deal with Bjurfors that I actually used myself. I guess either they don't bother with 3K points or they don't own any property.

Yeah they can't tell SKV that they are paying their expenses with personal card, also it depends on SKV sees the points as income.

johan rebel

But why should anybody's booking pattern have to be "normal" (whatever that means), and what are "regular" people anyway? Is there anything suspicious about booking leisure trips in business class?

Johan

fassy

Well, churning and manufactured spending are two different things. And both are not illegal... and shouldn’t concern Skatteverket as long as the money you use for it comes from your already taxed income.

(and as we discussed, you do not operate as a retail business without a proper setup)

All the manufactured spending opportunities in Sweden come at a cost. Often quite significant, like between 2 and 4%. So you have to be quite diligent with your methodology and have a good plan for spending those points at a decent rate.

Might be morally wrong but nothing SKV will really care about.

Fredrik74

I would consider it a near certainty that those asked by SKV will have to explain alternative ways of earning miles if they want to avoid the other plausible explanation: they used business travel to pay for personal travel.

The few people I referenced obviously didn't earn miles by paying for leisure trips. It's also fairly obvious they can't afford leisure trips in business to any large extent(which would be the logical way to earn miles by flying).

CPH-Flyer

According to the email quoted above, just having a Swedish phone number associated with the EB account would be enough to have the information sent to SKV.

Could make me wonder if one of my prior Danish numbers are still somewhere under office phone number or something....

GUWonder

I have some loyalty program accounts where even after decades of having repeatedly updated the contact info, the companies still intermittently send the booking info out using the old contact info.

I recall that Skatteverket indeed did ask for the list of EBD accounts based on 2017 EBD accounts having either one or both of the following associated with the account: a Swedish phone number and/or a Swedish address on file.

Having a Swedish phone number or even address on file doesn't necessarily make the person a resident in Sweden for tax purposes, so I guess Skatteverket will spend time investigating whether or not a phone number or address is registered as being affiliated with a person who was subject to personal income taxation in Sweden in 2017. Barking up the wrong trees is likely, especially as EBDs are probably a more internationally footloose cohort of people than the average EBB.

Fredrik74

It wouldn't surprise me if they calculate that there are some people officially resident in eg. Spain that in practice have more than family connections to Sweden.

GUWonder

For now they are going after just EBD members. I have to assume that if they find even a couple of "big catches" that are affiliated with this EBD hunt, then they may expand the effort since the information can also -- as you suggest above -- have implications for tax matters beyond just the taxation of perks acquired by way of company-paid travels.

Travel records are a gold mine of information for government authorities, and using such records for tax compliance purposes isn't exactly new in the world. They could also use it for compliance purposes related to Forsakringkassan as there are people who claim to be residing in Sweden but who are actually living abroad.

SKT-DK

I would hope that you are right, but let's not forget that in most (if not all three) Scandinavian countries, when it comes to tax you are usually effectively guilty until proven innocent, not the other way around

GUWonder

In civil tax matter disputes, that seems to be more or less the norm in just about every country where the OECD FATF has a lot of support.

fassy

Well, i think i said it before... to be honest I would be okay with FAIR taxation of the benefit.

But I can’t think of a way how they will estimate the fair value of points.

GUWonder

They really should come up with a practical and systematic policy to specifically cover these kind of circumstances, and it should be something that it makes it easy to comply with so that going forward people do not have to worry about novel interpretations and applications coming from the tax authorities. Vague principle-based rules about what should be done fails to appreciate that most people need detailed guidance up front in order to do what they want to do: the right thing.