När rättsläget tar en ny vändning - En kritisk granskning av lagen om talan om skattetillägg i vissa fall

Sammanfattning: The right not to be tried or punished twice is prescribed by Swedish law, the European Convention and the EU Charter of fundamental rights. Since both tax surcharge and criminal sanctions can be imposed in parallel by the Swedish legislation, it has been vividly debated over the last 20 years and critized for being in contravention of this human right. When the European Court presented the Zolotukhin judgment, the Swedish Supreme Court changed its attitude and made clear that the Swedish tax surcharge legislation was not compatible with article 4, protocol 7. This crucial moment led to a new law called “lagen om talan om skattetillägg i vissa fall”. During the investigation there were two suggestions: “samordnat förfarande” och “vägvalsprincipen”. The one chosen, “samordnat förfarande”, has been criticized by several authorities for being too complicated. The critizism has been based on arguments regarding cost efficiency and the risk for a divided praxis. They also thought it could come to divided praxis and big costs. Although, the investigation thought this suggestion was better than “vägvalsprincipen” because “vägvalsprincipen” would have been designed in a way that would have given citizens a way to manipulate the system to avoid penalty. In this thesis I analyze these two suggestions to examine which one has the strongest arguments. I also try to predict what consequences the new law will have. Both suggestions have pros and cons and I do not think the investigation has analyzed the risks with “vägvalsprincipen” good enough. My suggestion is to reconstruct the Swedish system of jurisdiction to only have one Supreme Court instead of two. If that were the case, “samordnat förfarande” is the best solution for the problem with double punishment.