Swedish cryptocurrency miners have been found to owe over $90 million in taxes following a government investigation that uncovered four years of deceptive practices. The Swedish Tax Agency, known as Skatteverket, examined the operations of 21 crypto mining companies from 2020 to 2023 and discovered that 18 of them provided misleading or incomplete information in order to take advantage of tax incentives.
The investigation revealed that some crypto firms gave false business descriptions to avoid paying value-added tax (VAT) on taxable activities. Others managed to evade import taxes on mining equipment or income tax on mining revenue. The Swedish Tax Agency stated that the crypto mining companies are now obligated to pay a total of over 990 million Swedish krona ($90 million) to the tax authorities. This includes unpaid VAT amounting to 932 million krona ($85.4 million) and tax surcharges of approximately 57.9 million krona ($5.3 million).
Despite the demand from the Swedish Tax Agency, the crypto mining firms have appealed against the $90 million obligation. However, the administrative court has upheld the appeals of only two mining firms, rejecting the rest. The agency stated that the tax obligations have been adjusted in accordance with the court’s verdicts.
In November 2023, cryptocurrency mining firm Hive Digital Technologies acquired a commercial property and a data center in Boden, Sweden. Johanna Thornblad, Hive’s country president for Sweden, confirmed that the property will be used to house the company’s new generation of ASIC servers and increase its Bitcoin production. Hive operates data center facilities in Canada, Sweden, and Iceland and is committed to using renewable energy to mine digital assets like Bitcoin on the cloud.
Image: [Insert image caption: A breakdown of tax obligations for crypto mining firms between 2020 and 2023. Source: Swedish Tax Agency]
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