Hostname: page-component-f554764f5-sl7kg Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-10T09:19:28.665Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The legacy of the Swedish gift and inheritance tax, 1884–2004

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2011

HENRY OHLSSON
HENRY OHLSSON*
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, Uppsala University and Uppsala Center for Fiscal Studies (UCFS), Box 513, SE-751 20 Uppsala, [email protected]
Get access

Abstract

The objective of this article is to study how people change their behaviour when taxes change. I follow the revenue from gift, inheritance and estate taxes in Sweden over more than a century. Second, I focus on a unique episode during the second half of the 1940s when gifts and gift tax revenue exploded. I have access to aggregate tax revenue data since 1884. Moreover, I have constructed a rich micro-data set of all gifts reported during the period 1942–9 in one county. A first main result is that gifts, inheritances and estates were never important sources of tax revenue. Tax revenue as a share of GDP and total government revenue had already reached peaks in the 1930s. The role of these taxes has instead primarily been equity and to provide integrity for other tax bases. Second, expectations were important. Gift tax revenue during the 1940s started to increase long before a new estate tax and increased wealth taxation were decided and implemented. The increase began even before the legislative process started. Third, economic power and economic control were important. Parents gave to their children to avoid taxes, but only when the expected gain became large enough and in ways that left them with as much economic power as possible.

Type
Research Article
Information
European Review of Economic History , Volume 15 , Issue 3 , December 2011 , pp. 539 - 569
Copyright
Copyright © European Historical Economics Society 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Beckert, J. (2007). The longue durée of inheritance law: discourses and institutional development in France, Germany, and the United States since 1800. European Journal of Sociology 48 (1), pp. 79–120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beckert, J. (2008). Inherited Wealth. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eberstein, G. (1948). Kvarlåtenskapsskatten i kritisk belysning. Stockholm: Norstedt.Google Scholar
Elvander, N. (1972). Svensk skattepolitik 1945–1970. Stockholm: Rabén & Sjögren.Google Scholar
Erlander, T. (1973). 1940–1949. Stockholm: Tiden.Google Scholar
Erlander, T. (2001). Dagböcker 1945–1949. Hedemora: Gidlunds förlag.Google Scholar
Fregert, K. and Gustafsson, R. (2007). Fiscal statistics for Sweden 1719– 2003. Research in Economic History 25, pp. 169–223.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Joulfaian, D. (2004). Gift taxes and lifetime transfers: time series evidence. Journal of Public Economics 88 (9–10), pp. 1917–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Joulfaian, D. and McGarry, K. (2004). Estate and gift tax incentives and inter vivos giving. National Tax Journal 57 (2), pp. 429–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lindgren, H. (2002). The modernization of Swedish credit markets, 1840–1905: evidence from probate records. Journal of Economic History 62 (3), pp. 810–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGarry, K. (2001). The cost of equality: unequal bequests and tax avoidance. Journal of Public Economics 79 (1), pp. 179–204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nationalekonomiska Föreningen. 1948. De nya skatteförslagen, sammanträde den 14 januari 1947. Förhandlingar 1947. Stockholm: Hæggströms, pp. 1–31.Google Scholar
Ohlin, B. (1975). Memoarer 1940–1951. Socialistisk skördetid som kom bort. Stockholm: Bonniers.Google Scholar
Poterba, J. (2001). Estate and gift taxes and incentives for inter vivos giving in the US. Journal of Public Economic 79 (1), pp. 237–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmalbeck, R. (2001). Avoiding federal wealth transfers taxes. In Gale, W. G., Hines, J. R. and Slemrod, J. (eds.), Rethinking the Estate and Gift Tax. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.Google Scholar
SOU (1946). Betänkande med förslag till omläggning av den direkta statsbeskattningen samt angående kvarlåtenskapsskatt. Statsskatteberedningen, SOU 1946:79.Google Scholar
SOU (1957). Arvsbeskattning. Betänkande av Arvsskattesakkunniga, SOU 1957:48.Google Scholar
Thurow, L. C. (1976). Generating Inequality. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Wigforss, E. (1954). Minnen III 1932–1949. Stockholm: Tiden.Google Scholar