Swedish cryptocurrency miners are facing a hefty tax bill of over $90 million following a government investigation that exposed four years of financial impropriety. The Swedish Tax Agency, known as Skatteverket, conducted a probe into the activities of 21 crypto-mining companies between 2020 and 2023. The investigation revealed that 18 of these firms had provided “misleading or incomplete” information in order to take advantage of tax incentives.
The agency discovered that some crypto companies had provided inaccurate descriptions of their businesses to avoid paying value-added tax on taxable operations. Others had found ways to evade import taxes on mining equipment and income tax on mining revenue.
According to a statement from the Swedish Tax Agency, the crypto mining firms are now obligated to pay the authorities a total of over 990 million Swedish krona ($90 million). This includes unpaid VAT totaling 932 million krona ($85.4 million) as well as tax surcharges of approximately 57.9 million krona ($5.3 million).
Although the crypto mining firms have appealed against the $90 million demand from the Swedish Tax Agency, the administrative court has upheld the appeals of only two mining firms, rejecting the rest. The agency stated, “The amounts mentioned above have been adjusted in accordance with the court rulings.”
In a related development, in November 2023, Hive Digital Technologies, a crypto mining company, acquired a commercial property and a data center in Boden, Sweden. Johanna Thornblad, Hive’s country president for Sweden, confirmed that the newly acquired property would accommodate the company’s upcoming generation of ASIC servers and contribute to increased Bitcoin (BTC) production.
Hive Digital Technologies operates data center facilities in Canada, Sweden, and Iceland, and is known for its commitment to using renewable energy sources to mine digital assets like Bitcoin in the cloud.