The taxes the Swedish state pulled in for the month of July was 6 billion kronor less than what the Swedish National Debt Office (Riksgälden) had predicted, SvD and others reported today (). Instead of the expected 34.6 billion SEK, the tally was instead 28.2 billion. Is this bad? The Swedish debt office basically functions as the government’s own bank, getting loans and providing guarantees. Being off like this likely came as a bit of a surprise.
Sweden is still in the financial world’s good books though. Ever since the pretty ginormous economic crisis in the early 90’s, the Swedish government has had to keep a leash on it’s spending visavi income. As a result of the crisis, the government got its act together in a surprising way, and the ”government surplus objective” (överskottsmålet) was established. The situation became this: The government’s income, minus its expenses, had to equal 2% of GDP.
Since then, fewer and fewer governments have seen this amount of savings as quite so important. It is also darn hard – spending money is always more fun than saving money, and this holds for governments too. In the years since the crisis, the percentage the government has been required to save has been adjusted (read: decreased). As of January 2019, it is now required that the government’s income, minus its expenses, has to equal just 0.33% over a “business cycle.” (What counts as a business cycle? No one knows. It’s like an interpretive dance – you can make of it what you will) ().
Also just as a side note, having this surplus doesn’t mean that Sweden doesn’t have debt. As of July, Sweden’s debt lies at 1074 billion SEK, which isn’t bad at all (). Some people even think we should borrow more, and spend the money on things like health care, hospitals and taking care of old people – but that’s another blog post. In the meantime, Sweden’s AAA credit rating remains tops.