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However, significantly more than 25,000 people have been to the Swedish Tax Agency’s electronic service and have performed calculations, reports Swedish Tax Agency tax filing expert Johan Schauman.
– We did not know what the result would be or how many people could get in touch. It’s potentially a lot of money you can get back, but the rules are complicated.
It hasn’t improved because various media features haven’t told the whole story, Schauman says.
– Recently, a person who sold their home in 2014 called and moved into a rental. He had no idea if he had to buy a replacement home in order to recoup the income tax paid. The article on a television news program did not mention that you have to buy a new house for this to be possible. That’s an important task, he says.
The fact that the rules are so complicated is due to the fact that various provisions of these regulations have been modified, sometimes several times.
In 2018, the rules were changed “back” to an older calculation method. In principle, it now applies that those who have made large profits and bought cheaper homes receive a deferral of half of the profits.
– Those who sell for 4 million SEK and buy a new house for 2 million SEK get a deferral of half of the profits. It’s more logical than before and has been in effect since 2018. But if you don’t buy a new home, you won’t get an income tax deferral, says Johan Schauman.
Several different requirements
The right of deferral contains a number of different requirements for you to be able to defer the taxation of earnings, for example, that you have bought the new house within a certain time and have also moved at the right time.
It is also important to remember that the right to deferral is linked to permanent housing, that is, a home where you live and are registered.
– This means that neither the house you sold nor the one you bought can be a vacation home, says Johan Schaumann.
The calculation rules change every year
The rules are strict and there are two additional scenarios worth addressing so as not to raise false hope, he says. Both have to do with the price of the replacement home.
– Anyone who buys a replacement home that is cheaper than the home sold is never entitled to a deferral for all of the earnings, only part of it. They may even not be entitled to a postponement at all. What makes this even more complicated is that different calculation rules have been applied depending on when they sold their first home. So the deferral of buying a cheaper home is calculated differently for different years, he says.
The deferral does not apply when moving into a lease
Another similar scenario is that you meet all the criteria to get a deferral, maybe even to get a deferral with all of the earnings, but then you made another home change and then bought a house cheaper than the first replacement house , or maybe you moved into a tenancy.
– The sale of the replacement home causes the imposition of the deferral and if you buy a cheaper home, you cannot get a full deferral. If you move into a lease, you are no longer entitled to a postponement, says Johan Schaumann.
However, the new electronic service cannot handle the second above scenario as it contains multiple steps. Therefore, it is important to be completely clear about what applies before requesting a reconsideration.
“Many disappointed elders”
– From the conversations that I have had to judge, it is mostly the elderly who move to a smaller and cheaper house who are affected by this. In cases involving people who otherwise have modest pensions, it becomes very important to be aware of the decisions that are made in this regard because otherwise they risk sitting in an unfavorable position, says Johan Schaumann.
He has received several phone calls from seniors who have been “very disappointed” that they bought a cheaper home than the one they sold and can only get a portion of the earnings deferred, or sometimes no deferral.
This particular point has not received much attention in the “relocation tax” debate. From a political point of view, it has been emphasized that it will now be easier for older people living in large houses to move to smaller houses, which will dissolve some congestion in the housing market.
But from Johan Schaumann’s conversations with the elderly, it can be concluded that many elderly people still hesitate to move, as they are immediately affected by not being able to push the income tax in front of them.
“The rules can be changed again”
Johan Schaumann also wants to emphasize the possibility, or risk, that the rules about how much tax to pay on earnings will change. This has happened several times before. If the rules change, new rules also apply to those with old earnings. In the late 1990s, the home income tax was 15 percent, but it was later changed to 20 percent. Today it is 22 percent.
– But that may change again, says Johan Schaumann.
Privata Affärer has described in several articles during the fall the possibility of requesting a reconsideration of the tax returns for those who have sold a house during the years 2014-2019, but did not request a postponement even though they bought a new house for the whole or part of the money they received. on the sale of your original home.
The changes in brief:
The annual cost having a postponement is removed. The changes will take effect on Friday, January 1, 2021. Deferring income taxes will cost nothing.
The new rules if the deferral interest abolished from the return filed in 2022 applies.
The one who sold your 2014-2019 house with earnings and bought a new one, in some cases you can defer the taxation of earnings by requesting a deferral.
Rules on deferral It applies only to permanent housing, that is, not to the person who sold or bought a vacation home, nor to the person who sold and then moved into a rental.
Also, you need bought and moved into the new house within a certain time so that you can get a postponement afterwards.
