How are people made to pay tax?Footnote 1 Tax collectors have applied many strategies to increase tax compliance ever since rulers first made citizens contribute to public expenses. Such strategies are both a reflection of the governmental steering of tax collectors’ work, for example, maximising revenue or applying the law equitably, and also a response to thwart taxpayers’ manifold counter-strategies aimed at, if not to avoiding, at least reducing tax payments. The practicalities and materialities surrounding reporting, collecting, and controlling tax are numerous and increasingly digital. Tax collectors learn about collection strategies from available research and from the experiences of other collecting agencies. In addition, tax collectors adopt communicative efforts – words – to ultimately increase taxpayer compliance while legitimising their work.
The Swedish Tax Agency (STA), Skatteverket, provides an array of documents on its website. ItFootnote 2 writes reports, standpoints, and writs. It describes legal cases and produce directives. Public recommendations are published, as are announcements, consultative responses to governmental tax proposals, and handbooks serving taxpayers, tax advisers, and inspectors. Each type of document has a slightly different purpose, and the bewildering array has collectively been referred to as diverse flowers in a (flower) bed of rules and regulations (Björklund Larsen Reference Björklund Larsen2015; Påhlsson Reference Påhlsson2006). Although there are a large variety of documents, the contents are almost entirely addressed to informed tax experts.
Aiming to reach a wider audience, the STA has for the last 70 years articulated visions, slogans, maxims, and rallying cries – here collectively referred to as mottos. These short communicative phrases are the subject of this chapter. The various mottos applied over the years illustrate the numerous strategies the STA has applied to make taxpayers report and pay tax in an increasingly timely and correct manner while legitimising their own work. We will see how strategies are applied in carefully considered and well-articulated mottos, drawing on contemporary tax research. Mottos play an active role at the STA. The incumbent motto was repeatedly referred to in the analysis project I followed at the STA – in discussions among the analysts, at coffee breaks, and at presentations for management (Björklund Larsen Reference Björklund Larsen2017: 77). In addition to being part of daily conversations, mottos were embedded in the project’s aims and analysts related the motto to existing research and to strategies currently applied at the STA. Lars, an analyst and leader of this particular project, said at one presentation:
Strategically we relate to research (especially economic models and behavioural economics). The STA has readymade strategies to address our mission and there are employees who make sure we apply them. Currently the STA applies a soft strategy as expressed in our motto – ‘Our vision is a society where everybody wants to do their fair share.’Footnote 3 This reflects an appreciation for people’s inner motivation.
Studying mottos is a useful way of analysing how Swedish taxpayers are made to comply. Whether the STA’s aim has been to inform, instruct, convince and/or persuade taxpayers towards increased compliance, we will see how these mottos reflect tax collectors’ responses to contemporary challenges. Focusing on the mottos allows us to understand the development of the STA’s engagement with taxpayers in various ways. Tracing the many mottos employed over the years, we can also gain insights into how the STA navigates between public administration decrees, policies and fashions, how they selectively adopt tax compliance research, regard the subjects for taxation – the taxpayers – and how they legitimise their work.
The word ‘motto’ derives from Italian, meaning a short sententious phrase, clever witty saying, or even one word (from French mot). Mottos encapsulate beliefs or ideals of an individual, family, or institution (Oxford English Dictionary). Mottos are usually carefully crafted, drawing on long traditions or social foundations, and express a rule of conduct or philosophy of life. Heraldry has mottos written on banderoles, badges, and shields. The STA’s mottos have changed over the years, but I see each one as an attempt to articulate a contemporary message of how this tax administration perceives taxpayers and aims to make them more compliant.
Studying mottos illustrates how organisations’ catchy phrases, such as slogans, are employed to affect and govern the public (Makovicky, Trémon, & Zandonai Reference Makovicky, Trémon, Zandonai, Makovicky, Trémon and Zandonai2017). Exploring the STA’s mottos offers an insight into how they view their own positioning in society vis-à-vis their constituents, the government, other public bureaucracies, and the public at large (Mayer Reference Mayer2009). As such, the mottos also reflect and shape the STA’s own work. They steer STA employees’ ways of working and engaging with the public – how they should behave in relation to taxpayers. Mottos refer to how tax compliance knowledge should be applied in practice and are used in a deliberately performative manner (Callon Reference Callon, MacKenzie, Muniesa and Siu2007; Callon & Muniesa Reference Callon and Muniesa2005). They signal the inherent values and rules of conduct and are thus a type of communicative imperative (Holmes Reference Holmes2009, Reference Holmes2014) where words, not numbers, are applied to govern taxpayer behaviour.
Studying the STA’s mottos as communicative engagements with society thus serves several purposes. First, the articulation of these engagements can inform us of how this governmental organisation views its taxpayers and attempts to govern them – to make them comply. Depending on whether tax collectors coerce or control, alternatively collaborate or communicate with taxpayers when raising revenue, very different views of taxpayers and of their relationship with each other emerge.
Second, analysing the mottos these tax collectors communicate also sheds light on how this central institution of the state selectively uses scientific research to develop and maintain revenue compliance strategies. Many scientific disciplines have engaged in tax compliance research – why taxpayers do not pay tax and consequently proposing strategies for how to make them comply (e.g. Allingham & Sandmo Reference Allingham and Sandmo1972; Alm Reference Alm1991; Boll Reference Boll2014a; Braithwaite Reference Braithwaite and Braithwaite2003; Folger Reference Folger, Bierhoff, Cohen and Greenberg1986; Levi Reference Levi1988; Onu & Oats Reference Onu and Oats2014; Picciotto Reference Picciotto2007; Torgler Reference Torgler2002). This wide range of research provides examples of multiple methods and proposes many causal explanations for taxpayer non-compliance and/or compliance. This research inspires the STA and as such also governs how taxpayers are viewed. Yet it also competes with the deeply ingrained, almost tacit, knowledge and ideas among tax inspectors about why people pay tax, why they avoid paying tax, and which type of taxpayers make up each category. New research might contradict views of experienced tax inspectors and create tension between instructions and practice. An ethnographic gaze on mottos allows us to see in practice which tax compliance strategies are in fashion, under what assumptions certain strategies are chosen, and in response to what. The mottos can thus be seen to provide access to understanding the ‘epistemic cultures’ of this tax administration (Holmes Reference Holmes2014: 12, e.g. Knorr-Cetina Reference Knorr-Cetina1999). In this sense, the work of the STA is very far from a Weberian apolitical bureaucracy.
Third is how tax administrations relate to societal changes, to contemporary trends of engaging with citizens and adapting their strategies to those of other Swedish public administrations – how the STA expresses contemporary societal values of governance. Even a bureaucracy like a tax administration is not immune to organisational trends, media reporting, and anecdotal knowledge (Fredriksson & Pallas Reference Fredriksson and Pallas2014). The mottos highlight how the STA has developed their strategies in response to challenges, their own failures, and contemporary tax research, as well as the changes and development of Swedish society. This includes, among other things, relating to a growing welfare state, clumsy handling of tax incidents, as well as increased immigration and the recent COVID pandemic. A tax administration cannot remain static in its tax collecting; it has to adapt to the times. And this is what the STA does by continuously working with strategies articulated in their mottos; aiming to shape Swedish taxpayers into greater compliance, while steering their own workforce to apply what it sees as compliance-increasing behaviour. Overall, communication with the public at large illustrates an important aspect of how a tax administration contributes to creating national tax cultures.
The chapter is organised as follows. I start by describing my methodological approach, the data collection, as well as what a study of tax administration mottos can teach us about actual practices. This is followed by a short description of central tax compliance strategies. The references in this section derive largely from scholarship within disciplines other than anthropology; there is very little written on tax compliance from an anthropological perspective – a noteworthy exception is provided by Karen Boll (Reference Boll2014a, Reference Boll2014b) who has critically dissected the Danish tax administration compliance practices. Following a brief overview of central concepts in the tax compliance literature is an ethnographic analysis of the various mottos embraced by the STA during the last seventy years. The chapter ends with a few points on how the mottos can be seen as imperative.
Methodology
The material for this chapter builds on extensive engagement with the STA for more than a decade, interacting on various tax issues (e.g. Björklund Larsen Reference Björklund Larsen2013, Reference Björklund Larsen2015, Reference Björklund Larsen2017; Björklund Larsen, Thoresson, & Johannesson Reference Björklund Larsen2017; Björklund Larsen et al. Reference Björklund Larsen, Boll, Brøgger, Kettunen, Potka-Soinen, Pellinen and Aziz2018). In particular focus is the ethnographic fieldwork I conducted at the STA during 2010–2013 where I followed a risk assessment project for its entire duration: from ideas and initiation, through the research phase, intermingled with presentations of its conclusions among management, to the moment the final project report was buried by the Director General (Björklund Larsen Reference Björklund Larsen2017). The resulting material comprises over 100 hours of transcribed meetings at the STA and interviews with key participants, all their internal emails, policy regulations, and instructions for their work, as well as copies of work in progress. One issue that repeatedly surfaced in discussions at all levels of management throughout the STA was references to its contemporary vision. It was central both to which arguments were possible to articulate and to which conclusions could feasibly be drawn (Björklund Larsen Reference Björklund Larsen2017: 73–74). This material comes into new light in this chapter, supplemented with strategy documents and guidelines as well as a para-ethnographic engagement (Holmes & Marcus Reference Holmes, Marcus, Ong and Collier2005, Reference Holmes, Marcus, Fisher and Downey2006, Reference Holmes and Marcus2008) with analysts (Björklund Larsen, Thoresson, & Johannesson Reference Björklund Larsen2017), and interviews with former and current inspectors and managers at the STA.
I regard the material used for this chapter as an ethnographic response (Riles Reference Riles2006); it is a response to the published mottos, supporting documents, and visions proudly produced and articulated by the STA to the Swedish public as well as to my own knowledge acquired about this organisation through long-term participant observation and numerous engagements. Applying this knowledge and material thus builds on Annelise Riles’ insight that a study of documents is also a reflection of ethnographers’ own knowledge. ‘The document becomes at once an ethnographic object, an analytical category, and a methodological orientation’ (Riles Reference Riles2006: 7). In this case, the documents are very short. The mottos are single-sentence concise summaries of attempts to change behaviour. These are related to research as well as to my own acquired knowledge about the STA.
My methodological approach of studying how communicative efforts make an impact on society also takes inspiration from anthropological work in the financial world. Douglas Holmes argues with his concept of ‘the economy of words’ that central bankers steer the performance of the economy through carefully narrated stories (Holmes Reference Holmes2009, Reference Holmes2014). He shows how central bankers since the 1980s have nurtured a communicative relationship with the public. By persuasive stories – not by interest rates and outcomes of econometric models – the public have been convinced about how the economy will perform. The insight by central bankers is that persuasive stories about the present impact the public’s economic behaviour in the future. By telling the public about certain goals, for example ‘promoting maximum employment’, promises are made about the central banks’ future behaviour as well as their policies that are meant to direct the economy in certain ways. Thereby, the public is provided with ‘intellectual material – data and analysis’ (Holmes Reference Holmes2014: 218) on which to make decisions. Central bankers thus steer how the economy will perform, not from the outcome of econometric models (Callon Reference Callon and Callon1998), but through words.
Tax Compliance Work at the STA
The STA has long worked with encouraging taxpayers to comply more voluntarily (Björklund Larsen Reference Björklund Larsen2017). It is a seemingly successful quest as it has during the last ten years been considered among the most trusted and revered Swedish public administrations (Arkhede & Holmberg Reference Arkhede and Holmberg2015: 22, 24). This is considered quite an achievement, not only in an international comparison, but also in the view of classic economic tax compliance research that postulates that the more people are made to pay tax, the larger is people’s propensity to avoid them (e.g. Allingham & Sandmo Reference Allingham and Sandmo1972). And Swedes pay a lot of tax; they are considered to be living under one of the largest tax burdens in the world (measured as total tax revenue in relation to gross domestic product (GDP); see www.ekonomifakta.se, in reference to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) 2018).
Allingham and Sandmo’s (1972) model of tax avoidance belongs to some of the most cited work of why people do not pay tax. A very simplified summary of the model is that a taxpayer is always calculating economic profits and will therefore attempt to maximise their economic outcome by paying just enough tax to not be caught and fined, but never more. Allingham and Sandmo’s seminal article and economic model have often been cited as an inspiration for why taxpayers evade income taxes (e.g. Engström & Holmlund Reference Engström and Holmlund2009; Lindbeck, Nyberg, & Weibull Reference Lindbeck, Nyberg and Weibull1999; Schneider & Enste Reference Schneider and Enste2002; Slemrod Reference Slemrod2007) and often cited by the STA itself (Skatteverket 2005, 2006, 2015, 2019). If taxpayers’ main motivation is to minimise tax contribution, tax administrations need to coerce and control taxpayers. It becomes a cat and mouse game (Braithwaite Reference Braithwaite and Braithwaite2003; Picciotto Reference Picciotto2007).
Although hugely influential, this emphasis on seeing the individual taxpayer as cheating has been supplanted by other approaches, including looking at individual, behavioural, and cognitive factors (e.g. Gogsadze Reference Gogsadze2016; Kirchler Reference Kirchler2007) and/or at social and cultural levels (e.g. Lewis et al. Reference Lewis, Carrera, Cullis and Jones2009). More specifically, research on compliance strategies has argued for the importance of strengthening reciprocity (Gribnau Reference Gribnau2015; Kornhauser Reference Kornhauser2007; Smith Reference Smith and Slemrod1992), and discussed ideas about a fair society (Picciotto Reference Picciotto2007), procedural fairness (Hartner et al. Reference Hartner, Rechberger, Kirchler and Schabmann2008), social norms (Edlund & Åberg Reference Edlund and Åberg2002; Onu & Oats Reference Onu and Oats2014; Posner Reference Posner2000), and tax morale (McKerchar, Bloomquist, & Pope Reference McKerchar, Bloomquist and Pope2013). More recently, taxpayer trust in society has surfaced as a key driver for tax compliance (Berenson Reference Berenson2018; Gribnau Reference Gribnau, Peeters, Gribnau and Badisco2017). In these debates, trust is understood as a relational resource which is accomplished iteratively by using the right strategies in combination.
Drawing on this research, I argue that five tax collector strategies can be identified. These have varied over the years and adapted to various categories of taxpayers, but important to keep in mind is that the compliance-strengthening strategies are often invoked in combinations (Levi Reference Levi1988). First, coercive strategies, where taxpayers are forced to pay, have been the main tools of rulers for most of tax history. Under the threat of weapons or legal prosecution, non-obedient taxpayers have across time and space been fined or jailed and subsequently subject to public condemnation (Levi Reference Levi1988). Yet, coercive sheer force does not strengthen trust (Berenson Reference Berenson2018). Second, controlling and auditing taxpayers ensuring that the right tax has been reported and paid is currently seen as one of the most important tools of any tax administration (OECD 2017). These tools can be part of coercive strategies but can also in more refined ways ensure that taxpayers at large trust the work of the tax collector. By showing that all taxpayers are made to report and pay the tax they owe, the argument goes that then other taxpayers are more prone to also pay up (Skatteverket 2015). This, as mentioned, was the main strategy at the STA during the end of the last century. Third, communication strategies were the results of tax administration insight that tax is for most taxpayers a horribly complicated task. Instructions in everyday language, step-by-step guides, and leaflets in most spoken languages of a country are seen to increase the possibility but also willingness to pay tax (Thärnström Reference Thärnström and Ekman2003). As will be seen in the discussion on mottos below, communication also includes informing taxpayers about what taxes are used for and may also carry moral messages. Fourth, collaborating with taxpayers in the name of making their reporting procedures more efficient is a fairly recent idea. The so-called cooperative compliance initiatives with multinational corporations as promoted by the OECD are just one such example (cf. Oats & de Widt Reference Oats and de Widt2017; Björklund Larsen et al. Reference Björklund Larsen, Boll, Brøgger, Kettunen, Potka-Soinen, Pellinen and Aziz2018). Five, simplicity is a somewhat overlooked strategy in tax compliance literature (Mann Reference Mann2006) – that tax administrations could increase willingness to pay tax and also compliance levels by making the tax return process for taxpayers as simple as possible. Digitalising tax returns can, if introduced carefully in an environment where all can assess the technology (cf. Osman Elmi Reference Osman Elmi2021), be one such smoothing strategy. That Swedish employed taxpayers are seen to be more compliant than their American counterparts can perhaps be partly explained by the fact that the former spend very little time doing their tax returns, whereas the latter on average need twenty-seven hours (Lepore Reference Lepore2012; cf. Björklund Larsen Reference Björklund Larsen2017: 69).
The STA has over the years tried many of these compliance-increasing strategies and tools. For example, one consequence derived from such work was its changed aim from collecting maximum amounts of tax to collecting the ‘right’ tax (Skatteverket 2005). The report stated up front that research and knowledge were adamant for articulating strategies; in this case, it drew heavily on research about the influence of norms and social values on tax compliance. The move towards collecting the right tax was not a frivolous undertaking, but a very deliberate policy decision based on tax compliance research and internal analysis projects conducted in the Swedish context. The report emphasising the ‘right’ tax draws heavily on academic tax research but is also reflective of STA’s own analysis work.
Mottos
Articulating mottos is a way for the STA to communicate to the public at large its view on how taxpayers ought to behave; the mottos are communicative imperatives (Holmes Reference Holmes2014: 13). Mottos are thus a response to actual revenue collection, a fine-tuning of strategies, but also a statement about future actions regarding collecting taxes. They articulate ‘a desirable step towards a common good’ – a hoped-for future (Makovicky, Trémon, & Zandonai Reference Makovicky, Trémon, Zandonai, Makovicky, Trémon and Zandonai2017: 9). As Gunnar, the head of the analysis department at the STA said in one conversation:
Our strategy [as a tax administration] currently reflects the motto ‘Our vision is a society where everybody wants to do their fair share.’Footnote 4 I think the motto basically holds even if there are people that intentionally deduct for issues they consider right to do, although they legally are not allowed to do so.
The mottos are, as will be discussed, sometimes the result of very wishful thinking about taxpayers’ behaviour. Yet, the message conveyed in the mottos is not only intended for the public but also for STA tax inspectors instructing them on how they should regard, and thereby treat, taxpayers.
Politically Inspired Mottos
Mottos play a central part in STA strategies. The first mottos the STA introduced were probably in 1955 (Thärnström Reference Thärnström and Ekman2003). These mottos drew on the contemporary political agenda as the building of the welfare state was in full force (e.g. Rothstein Reference Rothstein2001). The Social Democratic Party had by then governed Sweden almost exclusively since the 1930s. One of its governing ideas was arbetslinjen, the ‘Work Approach’, which meant getting all Swedes to work. Argued to be one of the main and most successful initiatives in the building of Swedish welfare society (Esser Reference Esser2005: 14; Lindvert Reference Lindvert2006: 18), it created policies to increase fiscal income. For one, it established public childcare to encourage women to find work outside the home while also creating a large new cohort of taxpayers. Another political idea was Folkhemmet, literally the ‘People’s Home’, which proffered that society should be a place where all citizens feel secure and are treated equitably (Frykman & Hansen Reference Frykman and Hansen2009: 80).
It was in this political context that the Department of Finance in the 1950s ran a national advertising campaign in forty-three different newspapers throughout the country (Thärnström Reference Thärnström and Ekman2003: 119). There were several slogans. Våra skolor danar framtidens Sverige (our schools fashion Sweden’s future), Att bli sjuk utan att bli ruinerad (being sick without going bankrupt), and att få åldras utan oro (to age without anxiety), but also reflecting the Cold War with the slogan Skatterna bär upp försvaret (taxes support defence). Such slogans intended to underscore that taxes financed public expenditures and that citizens got something in return for taxes paid. These mottos brought out both reciprocal and redistributive elements in taxation. The emphasis was not on the work of the tax administration per se, but rather on what you as a citizen in the emerging welfare state got for the taxes you paid. The imagined taxpayer was a citizen of the welfare state who ought to realise the public goods that taxes made available.
The taxes citizens paid were used for both collective (redistributive) and individual (reciprocal) purposes. Taxes could in this perspective almost be regarded as insurance. If Sweden was attacked, there was a defence; if you got sick and were prevented from working you were going to be taken care of. But there were also messages about the future; Swedish children were to get good schooling so that they could continue to build and support the welfare society and thus take care of you and your age cohort in the future. There would be funding available for your retirement – funding provided by taxes. These mottos reflected to a large extent the building of an archetypical welfare state (e.g. Svallfors Reference Svallfors1995).
In addition to taxes being closely tied to building the welfare state, non-compliance was also framed as an anti-democratic act. Another one of these mottos emphasised democratic citizenship. Vår åsikt om skatter ska vi uttrycka med vår röstsedel—och inte genom felaktig deklaration (Our opinion on taxes should be voiced through voting, not through faulty tax returns) (Thärnström Reference Thärnström and Ekman2003: 119). In this motto, taxes were directly tied to issues of citizenship and democracy instead of funding the welfare state. It was acknowledged that taxation was not exclusively a means to build a welfare state and that even Swedes could have different views on what the welfare state would encompass. However, the message was also that if Swedes had different opinions on tax, such opinions should be expressed in the voting booth – like any other political issue – and not through tax evasion. And if taxes are recognised as a truly democratic issue, all taxpayers ought to respect and obey the laws and regulations and report and pay taxes due in a timely fashion. Those sceptical about contributing to the emerging welfare society need to comply because the majority ruled.Footnote 5 The fact that non-citizens living in Sweden, who did not have the right to vote, were still liable for tax was an issue that was left to one side. Arguably, the mottos therefore excluded non-nationals in their talk about taxpayers. In this sense, it was a quite nationalistic motto indicating that taxes concerned Swedish citizens only. Although the mottos were informative, reminding citizens of the fiscal purpose, the coercive strategies were not yet out of fashion. Alongside these messages about the welfare state, citizens were duly informed that two years of penal work awaited those who did not contribute (Thärnström Reference Thärnström and Ekman2003).
Organisational Mottos
There are many Swedish tax inspectors that have held, and still hold, a sceptical view towards the taxpayers they serve (Ekerling Reference Ekerling1996; Björklund Larsen et al. Reference Björklund Larsen2017; Stridh & Wittberg Reference Stridh and Wittberg2015). The main way of verifying that taxpayers report and pay correctly is via systems of control. The ways such controls have been conducted have varied according to the trends of the times. In the 1970s, there was an attempt to marry the somewhat contradictory concepts of audit control with service mindedness. These were not well received by the media. The motto Kontroll är en del av servicen (audit control is part of the service) became subject to many bantering articles in the media (Ekman Reference Ekman and Ekman2003: 19). Yet, with the motto emerged for the first time an introspective focus, which was directed towards the STA’s own activities. Taxpayers obviously had to be controlled – taxation was not a frivolous and voluntary activity – but they were also citizens with rights. The tax agency had to consider how it collected taxes and how it treated taxpayers. The motto was adopted simultaneously as the infamous Ingmar Bergman affair exploded. In January 1976, Bergman was at the height of his career as an internationally acclaimed filmmaker and revered theatre director, when he was led away by two black-clad policemen from the national theatre Dramaten where he was rehearsing a play. The STA charged him with tax negligence, charges that were dropped two months later. A staunch believer in the welfare state, Bergman was not questioning the payment of taxes, but he was furious over the treatment he had been subjected to (Bergman Reference Bergman1987; Björklund Larsen Reference Björklund Larsen2017: 1–2). His decision to emigrate, promising never to return to Sweden, brought headlines all over the world, followed by harsh critique and international astonishment towards the way controls were conducted at the STA. The negative international and domestic media attention underscored a growing insight at the STA that it had to do something about the way it treated taxpayers (Stridh & Wittberg Reference Stridh and Wittberg2015: 17).
Although the view held was that taxpayers still had to be disciplined – controlled – for the first time ideas about servicing citizens surged. As Bertil recalled, attention to how controls were introduced started being discussed at the STA around this time. The late 1970s saw a shift towards even more introspection about the STA’s ways of working. Rätt skatt på rätt sätt (the right tax (collected) in the right way) and Balans mellan kontroll och service (strike a balance between control and service) (Höglund & Nöjd Reference Höglund and Nöjd2014) were two mottos. Höglund and Nöjd argue that these mottos’ intent was to ensure correct taxation with the minimum of coercive strategies employed. Yet they also emphasised the treatment of taxpayers. The STA could not say that only it offered a service, or conversely, audited taxpayers; its work had to be conducted and communicated in a more delicate way. It had to strike a balance between the carrot and the stick, both motivating and controlling taxpayers. Slowly, the STA started to communicate its new ways of working, stating that correct, perhaps even lenient, treatment of taxpayers – was a better strategy than coercive controls. The late 1970s saw an STA that increasingly focused on its own practices, dissecting its own ideas and treatments of taxpayers.
The 1980s saw increased attention to taxpayer depictions. There is a big difference between talking about citizens as taxpayers (skattebetalare), describing them in terms of contributing or tax indebted (skattskyldig), or portraying them as customers (kunder). Referring to an individual as indebted awards a completely different status to that individual from the one that a payer acquires. Although one can argue that it is only human to be in debt (Peebles Reference Peebles2010), it is clearly a position of inferiority compared with that of someone depicted as contributing to society. The indebted is subservient from the very start (Mauss [1990] Reference Mauss2002). In everyday jargon, STA employees even had an abbreviation for all ‘tax indebted’ people, sksk, pronounced as it appears. Needless to say, it also impersonalised taxpayers and made the distance even greater between STA employees and the people they ought to serve (Stridh and Wittberg Reference Stridh and Wittberg2015).
Referring to the taxpayer as a customer brings other connotations. Service was the code word in the 1980s and had started to inspire corporations, organisations, and bureaucracies throughout Sweden (Johansson Reference Johansson and Ekman2003), bringing in the notion of customers. A customer has a choice; s/he can decide what, where, and when to shop – or indeed not shop at all – whereas the taxpayer has few choices if s/he wants to obey laws, rules, and regulations. One can therefore question the validity of depicting taxpaying individuals as customers when the citizen has no choice whether or not to use the service ‘offered’ (Drewry Reference Drewry2005). Imagining the taxpayer as a customer also makes for a more market-informed relationship. A customer who pays ought to get value for whatever is paid. A customer also has certain rights; if nothing else these rights include being given the correct information and help to pay the taxes due. Although STA’s intention with such an approach was better treatment of taxpayers and improved service, the risk was that taxes become more directly seen as a market exchange. ‘Servicing customers’ can also transform the publicly employed tax administrator into a ‘simple salesman’ (Stridh & Wittberg Reference Stridh and Wittberg2015: 121), which clashed with the positive self-image held by many tax inspectors who were proud publicly employed bureaucrats (Ekerling Reference Ekerling1996).
Moral Mottos
At the end of last century, a new motto was introduced that redirected focus towards morality. Folk ska vilja göra rätt (people should want to comply). This perhaps coincides with the 1990s as being a more individualistic era (Rothstein Reference Rothstein2001), yet not necessarily less solidaric (Pettersson & Geyer Reference Pettersson and Geyer1992). A moral individual is imagined in this motto, but even more so, the duty to pay the right tax is moved from servicing a cohort of taxpayers – tributaries – towards putting the responsibility into the hands of taxpayers. They ought to willingly submit to paying tax. The motto in existence during most of the last decade, Vår vision är ett samhälle där alla vill göra rätt för sig (our vision is a society where everybody wants to do the right thing) or perhaps more specifically, where everybody wants to do their fair share, emphasises a move from the STA being a collector and auditor of taxes to it being a shaper of taxpayers’ voluntary compliance. There is a vision, an idea about a future of moral individuals that pay for the common good and thus make up society. Morality moved from an individual to a societal level.
A motto that sees the taxpayer as willing to comply and partaking responsibly in the collective funding of society reflects very different taxpayer motivations to those of Allingham and Sandmo’s tax-minimising taxpayer. There is of course other research pointing to other strategies, and mottos, and Lars knew about them too. He elaborated:
Such research suggests more control. We wrote about the causes [for deducting certain ‘illegal’ costs] in this analysis project. This is not controversial. But when we get to recommendations [to increase compliance], the issue is much, much trickier. There is research that suggests that increased control is a problem and will undermine our legitimacy. So if we [in the analysis report] suggest increased control, it will not agree with STA’s explicit strategy.
The fate of this particular analysis project report underlines how the director general negotiated the risk analysis findings, contemporary (economic) research, and existing strategies in communication. The analysis report showed that taxpayers might not be as compliant as the motto at the time suggested. The STA’s vision of a society where everybody wants to do their fair share did not hold. Instead, increased control was recommended. This contradictory message to contemporary strategies was one reason why the report was never publicly communicated but in fact buried (Björklund Larsen Reference Björklund Larsen2017: 170).
The current motto was coined a couple of years ago and it puts even more emphasis on the collective. On us. Together. Including the tax administration itself. Tillsammans gör vi samhället möjligt (in collaboration we make society possible) depicts an inclusive strategy where we, the citizens, should feel solidarity with the STA, in paying tax (Höglund & Nöjd Reference Höglund and Nöjd2014). Gone is the morality of the individual and the specific reciprocity of getting something for taxes paid or when in need; instead the message is that we are all in this together – all sorts of individuals, organisations and corporations, whether taxpayers or working at the tax administration. What can be read into this motto is also a shift towards equality – equal treatment before the law regardless of taxpayer’s occupation, socio-economic status, education, place of residence, and so on. This collaborative aspect also includes the tax administration itself. They should behave according to the same standards as all other Swedish taxpayers. The STA has come far from when the employees referred to a taxpayer as sksk!
Imperative Mottos
Studying mottos provides an insight into how Swedish taxpayers are made to comply and offers some clear takeaways. First of all, mottos reveal how the STA governs tax collection but also how it aims to understand Swedish taxpayers. The STA has a revered position in Swedish society as one of the most trusted bureaucracies. Studying its mottos over the years, we can see how they aimed to strengthen this position by putting words to ideas about what makes people more willing to report and pay the taxes they owe. While the mottos cannot tell us everything about STA practices, the messages the mottos convey illustrate how the STA enables fiscal strategies in practice. Whether the mottos or the strategies came first is a question of the chicken and the egg. But we can clearly see a connection between the STA’s tax collecting strategies and contemporary mottos. The political mottos communicated what tax collected was used for. These mottos separated tax from the STA’s collecting practices that during this period continued to be coercive and controlling. The organisational mottos that followed put the limelight on the STA and its working methods and reflected an increased focus on simplifying tax reporting and payment for taxpayers. The moral mottos are encompassing, providing a message that the STA and taxpayers collectively make up Swedish society. Alongside collaboration emerging as an important compliance strategy, control is also back in fashion. From the STA’s perspective, there is tax avoidance and evasion. Its view is that there are taxpayers who have little interest in reporting and paying what they owe and therefore have to be made to comply.
Second, although taxpayers consist of individuals, corporations, and organisations, STA communication concentrates on the individual taxpayer. Perhaps the reason is both economic and societal: taxes from individuals constitute two-thirds of total fiscal revenues in Sweden. An informant working as a tax adviser for one of the ‘Big Four’ (accounting firms) in Sweden stated: ‘The upshot is that any income earned by an individual ought to be subject to tax assessment.’ This means any income, be it monetary, the result of bartering, or any other service that has value, is taxable. Being a Swedish resident earning any type of income means being liable for tax. The fiscal importance of individual contributions results in the mottos primarily targeting the individual. The STA thus aims both to make sense of values held in society and to reinforce those deemed to increase tax compliance by educating taxpayers on the role tax plays in Swedish society.
Third, by looking at mottos we can see how the STA has applied many different compliance strategies, often in combination. Coercion, control, communication, collaboration, and, noteworthy, simplification – the mottos show how the STA strikes a fine balance between different compliance techniques. If employed, doing your tax return is an easy feat in Sweden as the employer reports and pays the income taxes and social security fees due. While it is easy to conform to the STA’s motto of taxpayers doing the right thing, it is also not, strictly speaking, a question of confirming as these taxpayers have little choice in the matter.
Which brings us to a fourth point, which is both methodological and empirical. This study is an ethnographic response to short communicative statements where the STA’s ambition is taken seriously but put in a wider context. The analysis builds on my own extensive knowledge about the activities that the STA engages in and the role these tax collectors want to play in society. Like the central banks who provide imperative messages to the public for us to make informed choices (Holmes Reference Holmes2014: 218), the STA brings us mottos to ensure compliance. The mottos are communicative imperatives; they tell taxpayers how a tax-compliant society ought to be. Mottos are also employed to govern the STA’s own employees, encouraging them to abandon preconceptions about certain taxpayers and instead apply the STA’s own strategies in their daily work. We have seen how the STA increasingly situates itself as part of society. The message is that we, the STA and taxpayers, are in this together; in collaboration, we make society possible. This final point underscores that a successful tax administration has to pay attention not only to tax research, but also to contemporary societal changes and cultural values to make its taxpayers comply. This includes telling the public explicitly about these values by articulating mottos about ideal compliant taxpayers and their vision of their own role in collecting revenue.
Conclusion
The STA currently claims that they aim to collect taxes simply, correctly, and securely from all taxpayers (Skatteverket 2020). This has not always been the case. In this chapter, through a study of STA mottos, we have followed the agency’s trajectory in adopting various strategies to ensure taxpayers report and pay the right tax, to ensure they comply. From a position of being a feared and somewhat despised bureaucracy, it has achieved a contemporary standing as one of the most revered public administrations in Sweden. The diverse mottos the STA has used during the last seventy years illustrates how it has increasingly legitimised its work and how it has adapted to societal changes, responded to contemporary politics, and articulated strategies based on contemporary tax research.
Interestingly, it is not only bureaucratic efficiency and, sometimes, coercive methods that steer their activities. The study of the STA mottos mirrors how the agency’s employees actually pay close attention to academic tax research, engaging with scholars, and that they reflect on the STA’s own standing in society. In other words, the STA pays rather close attention to how taxpayers regard them and their fiscal collection. In this way, they pay attention to societal values around tax and aim to adapt when such values change.
The STA has constantly modified its practices to chime with contemporary happenings and societal values. We have seen how the STA changed its views on citizens from educating them about the benefits taxes ought to provide, to forcefully encouraging citizens to pay the right tax. It started by articulating mottos about taxes as politically decided and thus the result of democratic elections. The message was that it is a majority of citizens that decide and have voted for a welfare state and the services it provides. These mottos underline that citizens should not express any discontent through faulty tax returns, but instead wait until the next democratic election and elect politicians who would change taxes to their liking. The STA then started to look inward realising that it also needed to serve taxpayers. These mottos reflected organisational changes within the administration. The inward gaze – how they referred to and treated taxpayers – was there to stay, alongside directing more focus onto individual citizens. Part of the organisational change was to make taxpaying as easy as possible; it should ‘be easy to comply – difficult not to comply’. It thus employed both a carrot and a stick method; servicing the public, while also making sure that taxpayers paid due taxes by control measures. Next, in turn, was an approach which carefully considered the language used to depict taxpayers. Notions of a tributary, a tax indebted person (expressed in derogatory acronyms), a taxpayer, or a customer communicate very different messages to the public. Focus on the individual followed the times. In the 1990s, where the idea of individual agency ruled fairly unchallenged, the emphasis was put on the moral taxpayer. It was up to the individual to decide to be moral and law-abiding, to report and pay the amount of taxes owed. Currently, focus has moved to ideas about collectivity. It is a message that taxes serve all of us and the mottos are moral and communicate societal collectivity. These mottos convey a message that only if everybody fulfils their fiscal obligations and the STA does its job properly, we will have a good society – one where everybody aims to do the right thing and pay their fair share. We are in this together – citizens and the STA.
Following the various mottos over time not only draws on tax research, but also convey messages about the importance of taxes for Swedish society and which types of individual behaviours and morals make up society. These fiscal mottos are thus also imperative as they make ‘promises of a distinctive social order’ (Holmes Reference Holmes2014: 218), one where all taxpayers ought to be willing to pay their taxes due to society and trust that all other taxpayers are made to do the same.
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