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I really tried to think through this and search before asking. I hate having to ask questions.

On this webpage, on the Swedish IRS' website.

It says:

Om du säljer en privatbostadsrätt med vinst ska 22/30 av vinsten beskattas. En förlust får dras av med 50 procent.

This, in English, means:

If you sell a private (owned) apartment with profits, 22/30 of the profits are to be taxed. A loss can be reduced by 50 percent.

They go out of their way to avoid "percent" for the most important part. Why? I have no idea. I've never heard or seen "22/30" in any context, and it makes no sense to me.

Some other webpage in English claims that it means 73.33333333%... Source.

Why would they mix this bizarre way of typing a percentage with the actual percentage in the same paragraph, and in other places on the same webpage? There must be a reason for this.

And if they really are going to take 73.3% of the profits, that is absolutely insane and there won't be almost anything left at all. They cannot possibly mean that. Capital gains taxes are like "30 % of the profits" in Sweden, and I assumed that selling an apartment would be at least the same or less than that. 70+%? That simply cannot be right.

JohnFx
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Shindle
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1 Answers1

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I agree that the 22/30 seems odd where all other fractions are expressed as percentages.

Looking at this KPMG site makes things a little clearer:

22/30 of principal residence gains are taxed at a flat rate of 30 percent. Taxation may be deferred if a substitute home is bought within the EU and if certain criteria are met. Tax of 0.5 percent of the deferred gain is levied annually.

So the actual taxation is 30% of 22/30, not 73.33%. And if another house is bought within the EU (with some conditions), it doesn't apply.

As KateGregory says in the comments, stating it as 22/30 makes the overall tax rate easy to see:

22/30 x 30/100 = 22/100

Peter K.
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