Skattemässiga avdrag för kostnader som inte självklart är en del av verksamheten – Med fokus på HFD:s hantering av sponsring och klimatkompensation

Sammanfattning: This thesis investigates the rather unclear tax regulation regarding expenses for sponsorship and climate compensation. Namely, the unclear aspects can be assumed to affect taxpayers’ incentives to make such contributions and thereby counteract the fulfillment of Sweden's climate targets. The thesis also investigates how SAC has gone and should go about interpreting and applying the regulation, to identify potential trends and shortcomings in SAC’s procedures, provide a clear view of current statutes and opinions of how SAC should proceed, compare the procedures with these statutes and opinions and thus contribute to a higher legal predictability. Thus, this thesis mainly aims to deepen the understanding of how SAC should handle, and in relevant cases has handled, unclear aspects of the regulation as well as the consequences of this and to propose alternative solutions. To fulfill this purpose, several questions about the regulation and SAC’s approach are answered with a legal dogmatic method and a discussion based on the legal investigation. The main material is RF, IL, six court cases from SAC and legal literature by Påhlsson, Bjuvberg, Cejie, Persson Österman, Tjernberg and Lodin among others. The conclusions are mainly as follows: Deductions shall be made for sponsorship and climate compensation expenses that are for the acquisition and maintenance of income, if sufficient direct compensation has been provided, there is a sufficiently strong connection between the parties or there is reason to believe that the expenses have promoted the sale of the contributing party's products. In the court cases, SAC can be considered to have acted in accordance with current statutes and opinions to some extent. However, the court can be criticized for not being sufficiently transparent, detailed and clear in its grounds for judgment. This can be assumed to have prevented a higher degree of predictability and damaged the taxpayers’ trust for and legitimacy of SAC, which is why more detailed grounds for judgment would have been preferable. Furthermore, SAC appears to have considered subjective climate-related opinions, which can be assumed to have led to a lower predictability but also strengthened the trust in SAC and increased compliance with tax regulations. In addition, SAC (and CATR) can be criticized for not following förhandsbeskedsinstitutet’s procedural rules, which has resulted in misunderstandings and lower trust for the court. Therefore, SAC should present clear and transparent grounds for judgment with clear guidelines and motivations for its interpretations, try to maintain its tradition of relatively restrictive interpretations and follow relevant procedural law. Furthermore, it is preferred if SAC avoids making less restricted interpretations, other than possibly in difficult cases under certain strict conditions. An alternative potential solution is the enactment of specific legislation for these types of expenses which, however, does not appear to be obviously more advantageous in all respects.