Left parties want to investigate a billionaire tax.
A bad idea, according to the financier and billionaire Sven Hagströmer – who calls it “madness”.
– This policy creates nothing, he says to Svenska Dagbladet.
It was just over a week ago that the leader of the Left Party, Nooshi Dadgostar, attacked Sweden’s “super rich” and suggested that a special billionaire tax should be investigated.
– The biggest dividing line in our country is not between you and your colleagues, between Christian and Muslim, between sick and healthy. It goes between the super rich and the rest of us, she told Expressen.
The proposal has been dismissed by Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson (M), who states that “those who earn the most also pay a lot more in taxes”.
Hagströmer’s criticism
Even Sven Hagströmer, who founded and is a major shareholder in, among other things, the online bank Avanza and the investment company Creades, is critical. Among other things, he believes that such a tax could drive entrepreneurs out of Sweden.
In an interview with Svenska Dagbladet, which asks Hagströmer if he himself would move if a new model were introduced in Sweden, the financier says:
– No, but I decided to stay already in the 70s when my friends went to England to avoid the tax here. For me, who is averagely gifted, it was certainly good that all the smartest left the country, but it is not the best for Sweden as a whole.
“Creates nothing”
He continues:
– This policy creates nothing. We need more entrepreneurs who make the pie bigger, so that there will be something to distribute at all.
Hagströmer, who is worth over ten billion kroner, says he feels “unfairly singled out” when large companies are portrayed as greedy. But he still believes that he and Dadgostar have something in common:
– I think we both love the Swedish model with free education and healthcare and that both want to do more for integration, says the financier to SvD.
