Liljeqvist.com - 2009 October

Archive for October 2009

On the Australia – Sweden Tax Treaty

In Uncategorized on 31 October 2009 with no comments

Sydney Opera House

(If you are a Swedish expat in Australia, or Australian expat in Sweden, and find international taxation interesting, then read on.)

In 1981, Australia and Sweden signed a tax treaty. In Sweden, the tax treaty is identified as “Proposition 1981:1006 – Förordning om dubbelbeskattningsavtal mellan Sverige och Australien.” Unfortunately, the Swedish Tax Office web site does not list (as of October 2009) the full text of the agreement on its page listing Sweden’s different bilateral tax treaties.

I have come over the old print version of the treaty and scanned the two missing attachments as pdf files. If you want to read up on the treaty, you can download the missing attachments below:

SFS 1981:1006 Bilaga 1 (4Mb .pdf)
SFS 1981:1006 Bilaga 2 (1.5Mb .pdf)

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Summary in Swedish:
1981 kom Australien och Sverige överens om ett dubbelbeskattningsavtal, känt som proposition 1981:1006. Den detaljerade texten för detta avtal finns i skrivande stund inte tillgänglig på svenska Skatteverkets hemsida. Länkarna ovan leder till pdf-versioner av avtalets två bilagor, scannade från svensk författningssamling 1981.

Permanent residency in Australia. Yay!

In Uncategorized on 22 October 2009 with no comments

Lisa and I were granted Australian permanent residency this week. Very happy! In a couple of weeks we will fly over to Auckland to visit my friend Tobias and get the new visa label in our passports. (Since we applied for the visa when overseas, we have to leave the country to get it – thus our trip to Auckland.)

The contrast between Australia and Sweden is quite striking.

In Sweden, fringe nationalist party Sweden Democrats have recently featured in the news campaigning on an anti-immigration platform and look set to win their first seat in the parliament in next year’s elections. Although Sweden’s official policy is not as silly as that, it is still quite difficult for non-refugee migrants from outside of the EU to move to Sweden.

In Australia, the government tries to attract the world’s well-educated young with special “Skilled Migrant” visas specially geared towards people in their thirties with uni degrees and unique skills.

I do not know much about foreign policy, but if I ran a country, I too would make it extra easy for young, educated people to move there. What a great strategy; old Europe pays for their education, then Australia gets them to relocate to the sun.