Yvette Lind in Intertax vol 49 no. 11 with paper “Attracting multinational tech-companies through environmental tax incentives”

Assistant Professor Yvette Lind (Twitter: @YsLind) has published her paper “Attracting multinational tech-companies through environmental tax incentives” in Intertax vol 49 no. 11 2021.

In the article, Yvette guides the reader through the Swedish tax system and its preferential tax regime in favour of data centres. As she explains, data centres from multinational tech-giants, including Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, and Netflix, benefit from a highly preferential tax regime in Sweden (and its Nordic neighbours) regarding the taxation of the electricity that they use. She provides a critical assessment of this tax regime, highlighting that neither EU state aid law nor the non-discrimination principle seem to prevent the adoption of such preferential tax measures. Yet, it is possible that this regime distorts competition in the internal market. Moreover, Yvette Lind’s paper stresses the inconsistencies between this tax regime and Sweden’s sustainability agenda. Her conclusions emphasize the importance of aligning tax systems to broader environmental objectives such as the mitigation of climate change.

The paper is highly relevant to the Danish Ringsted situation, which was reported on in Danish news media during the fall.

The article is accessible here.