In 2021, Sweden introduced new legislation extending Swedish tax liabilities to temporary workers having no permanent residency for tax purposes. The registration process that was already in place for non-Swedish workers was manual and paper-based, and peaks in volumes often created delays, sometimes for several weeks. Furthermore, it was not compatible with the tax registration system for Swedish citizens, which is digital, fast and seamless.
Non-Swedish residents needed to get the correct tax registration, preferably before commencing work or business activities in Sweden, to proceed with their commitments without incurring potentially unknown tax risks.
International taxation rules are complicated, and normally new, non-permanent residents had to provide a lot of personal and work-related information for correct taxation. At the same time, identification and risk assessment of foreign residents, highly relevant when it comes to fighting fraud, were very difficult tasks due to the use of temporary non-Swedish workers in labour-intensive sectors and the complexity of international tax and treaty rules.
The process needed to be smoother and meet the requirements of EU law regarding free movement, and to fulfil internal and international obligations to reduce risk.
To tackle this, the Swedish Tax Administration (STA) created the TAIS project (Tillfälligt Arbete i Sverige [Temporary work in Sweden rules]. It consisted of the implementation of an automated artificial intelligence and machine learning supported tax registration for non-Swedish residents, which made the process faster, less liable to errors and fraud-resistant.
The first phase started in 2019 and the service was opened to non-Swedish residents (for both individuals and businesses) by summer 2020. It implied digital applications and enabled training of the risk assessment models integrated with case management.