The proposal: Increased tax in Trollhättan - to avoid cuts

During Wednesday, the governing majority in Trollhättan presented the budget for 2020. The proposal is to raise the tax by SEK 0.80 per hundred dollars, which will be about SEK 200-250 more per month for an average income earner in the municipality.

- This means that we do not need to continue cutting welfare. The decisive savings packages are fixed, but there will be no further savings, says Paul Åkerlund (S).

How do you motivate the tax increase?

- It has been a great concern to get the economy together, where social services, education and care have been severely affected. We have had two rounds of savings packages and that is why we made this choice to raise the tax otherwise we would have had to dismiss people, says Paul Åkerlund.

The tax increase will give about 100 million extra. But not all money should be used at once, says Paul Åkerlund.

- You can't raise taxes all the time. Now we have raised the ground for 2021, which looks to be really cool. So we have taken the readiness for years to come, he says.

Moderates' opposition council Peter Eriksson is critical to a tax increase.

- It's totally reprehensible. We have structural problems that you have to address, otherwise it will be like a broken bucket that you just fill. We have a high unemployment rate, high welfare support and a housing segregation, which is not only solved by raising taxes, says Peter Eriksson (M).

Peter Eriksson does not think it is justified to raise the tax in order to save it for poorer economic times.

- It's pretty unreasonable, to raise taxes to save you. We think that we should put more businesses in competition for better quality and artificial awareness, he says.