Håkan Nesser after the acquittal: "I regret the companies in Malta"

It has been five years since it was discovered that Håkan Nesser had transferred SEK 15 million from the low-tax country Malta without declaring the income.

A week after the acquittal, it is a relieved, but according to his own statement, tired and sprained Håkan Nesser who meets up with Kulturnyheterna at his home on Gotland.

"It has felt like a low-intensity nightmare. There are worse problems in the world, I understand that, but it has been a tough period.

Acquitted in court

In the judgment, the district court writes that the money from Malta should have been declared and that the residual tax was correct. But the author is acquitted of tax evasion. The district court found that the errors were due to the negligence of his financial adviser, who was also acquitted of crime.

According to the author, the story began 15 years ago, when he was supposed to live in the United States and the United Kingdom for a few years.

"My advisor suggested that it was time to have a company in Malta. It was mainly because you benefit from it and because I was not liable to pay tax in Sweden during these years.

"When we moved home, I thought the tax had been paid and everything was ready. Actually, it is one small mistake that caused it all.

"Solidarity with Swedish tax"

For three years after the repatriation, the companies in Malta were emptied, something the adviser said was unproblematic, according to Nesser. But this was not the case, and the Malta story begins in public.

Håkan Nesser says that he has been angry, but in the end accepted that he has done wrong. The headlines about suspected tax evasion have been more difficult.

"It sounds silly, but I stand in solidarity with Swedish tax policy. The tax authorities get scammed by professionals, over and over again.

How does this attitude relate to starting a company in Malta?

"I'm not as in solidarity with the United States, or England, where we lived then. So surely it is connected.

"The Swedish Tax Agency has received eight million that they were not entitled to, so it was in the end. How much I have paid in taxes over 50 years I do not know, but at least I have been nourishing to this society, not draining.

Do you feel it was wrong that you had to pay this money?

"No, when it came down to it, I understood that I should have declared this money, that it was a mistake.

"I regret having a company in Malta at all. You're a little burned, sprained by it all. With some justification then, because you should not have companies in other places.