The energy industry is seeing red and warning of higher electricity prices if the Tax Agency's new proposal on how to value energy companies' properties goes through.
This would increase the property tax for energy companies by approximately 1.5 billion per year.
More than a doubling compared to previous years, says Erik Thornström, responsible for taxes and regulatory affairs at the industry organisation Energiföretagen.
It is primarily the sky-high electricity prices of 2022 that are behind the surge in tax values for energy companies' production units.
This would increase the costs of electricity production, which would indirectly raise electricity prices. It would also hit hard on new investments when we need to speed up the expansion of electricity production to meet the climate targets, says Thornström.
The largest difference in tax values would affect nuclear power plants. According to Energiföretagen, they would increase by 666 per cent, resulting in an additional 400 million in property tax per year.
Want to disregard 2022
Energiföretagen opposes the Tax Agency's proposal and argues that one should not take into account the sky-high electricity prices from 2022 in the calculations. The prices became unusually high, largely due to the war in Ukraine and the stopped gas export from Russia to Europe.
Then you got to enjoy the profits from the high prices. Why shouldn't you pay property tax as a consequence now?
Our objection is that the tax value that one is taxed on should correspond to 75 per cent of the market value. The fact that we had unusually high electricity prices in 2022 does not give a higher market value going forward, says Erik Thornström.
Goes against nuclear power policy
Energiföretagen also believes that the proposal would go directly against the government's nuclear power policy.
They have clearly stated that they want to expand nuclear power, but this would make such an expansion more expensive, of course, says Thornström.
