The budget proposal for 2025 presented today has a completely different profile than the one presented last autumn.
This budget is significantly more expansive and includes new reforms worth approximately 60 billion kronor, compared to 39 billion in 2024.
Of the 60 billion, nearly 27 billion kronor will go towards reduced taxes, which will benefit households in the form of reduced taxes on wages and pensions, reduced taxes on savings, and on petrol in 2025.
Taxes were indeed reduced this year as well, but at the same time, the automatic adjustment of the threshold for state tax was paused. This meant that high-income earners missed out on 13 billion kronor.
Stimulate the Economy
The government wants to support households affected by price and interest rate increases during the inflation with the tax cuts. But it also wants to stimulate the economy, since Sweden is in a low-growth period.
A clear difference between this year's budget and the new one for 2025 is welfare. The budget proposal for 2024 included new additions to healthcare, education, and care for 16 billion. Now, significantly smaller additions are proposed, 7.5 billion kronor, of which more than three will go to healthcare.
The government is no longer as concerned about the economy of the healthcare sector. The falling inflation is expected to significantly reduce the pension costs of the regions in 2025. The Ministry of Finance estimates that the municipal sector will end up in the black next year, while the regions will break even with the help of the additions in the 2025 budget.
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The opposition is expected to demand more money for welfare in today's budget debate. The government can also expect criticism for the distribution effects of the budget allocations.
The strengthened job tax deduction is estimated to give over four million wage earners an average of 2,600 kronor per year in reduced taxes. At the same time, 465,000 people with the highest incomes will get a tax reduction of an average of 10,100 kronor per year when the job tax deduction's tapering for high salaries is abolished in 2025.
The government's proposed investments in the environment and climate of 1.3 billion will also be criticized by the opposition for being insufficient.
Tax Reduction: 26.7 billion kronor (44 percent)
strengthened job tax deduction: 11 billion
tax reduction for pensioners: 2.5 billion
abolition of job tax deduction tapering: 4.7 billion
tax reduction on ISK savings: 4.4 billion
reduced petrol tax: 3.2 billion
abolition of air travel tax: 0.9 billion
Welfare: 7.5 billion kronor (12 percent)
healthcare: 4.6 billion
education: 2.8 billion
care: 0.1 billion
Total Defense: 8.6 billion kronor (14 percent)
Environment and Climate: 1.3 billion kronor (2 percent)
Judicial System: 3.5 billion kronor (6 percent)
Infrastructure (road maintenance): 1.6 billion kronor (3 percent)
Research: 1.5 billion kronor (3 percent)
Medicine Costs: 5.6 billion kronor (9 percent)
Other: approximately 4 billion kronor (7 percent)
Total: Approximately 60 billion kronor (100 percent)
Source: Ministry of Finance
