Parliamentary seminar on sponsorship and CSR

There is great tax uncertainty regarding companies' costs for sponsorship and CSR work. Current practice from the Swedish Tax Agency and the courts leads to discretionary and unfair assessments. If the company sponsoring a business only receives an indirect counterpart in the form of expected goodwill and image creation, the Swedish Tax Agency in many cases considers that part to be a gift and denies deduction of the cost, while if the counterpart received is in the form of marketing and brand exposure, deductions can be allowed. This approach is outdated and leads to an unequal situation. The value of a brand has never been stronger. The question is whether the legislation needs to be clarified so that costs for goodwill and image creation are also deductible.

The other speakers are: Helena Vilhelmsson (c), Per Nilsson (Director Group Communication SKF), Annika Grälls (Elitfotboll Dam), Anders Fredriksson (Tax Director SKF), Richard Hellenius (Director Corporate Tax Policy, Confederation of Swedish Enterprise) and Niklas Karlsson (Chairman of the Tax Committee (s)). Moderator is Anders Ydstedt (Confederation of Swedish Enterprise).