The Swedish Tax Agency has previously estimated the bill for the mobile scam to be 3.3 billion.

Now the number is written down.

"A new updated calculation is that suspected tax evasion amounts to about 3.5-4 billion," writes Liz Kilenius, section manager at the Swedish Tax Agency to SVT.

On 1 April, so-called reverse VAT will be introduced on trade in mobile phones.

It will make the current type of VAT fraud impossible, and has already been introduced by several other EU countries several years ago.

In Sweden, the government began work on a change in the law after the Swedish Tax Agency sounded the alarm about mobile looting in the autumn of 2019. But the Swedish Tax Agency had already warned in 2017 that mobile fraud had increased in Sweden after other countries introduced reverse VAT.

(See fact box.)

Critics say that Sweden became a target when the country delayed doing as the other countries.

- It's like being the only one who goes out in a snowstorm without pants.

As an invitation to those who know how to carry out the scams: welcome to Sweden and continue, says Richard Ainsworth, professor at Boston University and one of the world's leading experts on VAT fraud.

"Big cons"

The Ministry of Finance writes in a reply to SVT that there were several counter-arguments against introducing the reverse VAT earlier, above all large administrative costs that are estimated to amount to hundreds of millions and also affect serious companies.

For the same reason, the government has also chosen not to allow the new law change to cover trade in IP telephony, despite the fact that according to several experts it could be the next possible market for fraudsters.

SVT's review has shown that a large part of the companies in the mobile loophole are also involved in IP telephony, and Richard Ainsworth believes that Sweden now risks being hit by more fraud.

- VAT fraud with IP telephony is among the most dangerous there is, much more dangerous than with mobile phones.

IP telephony is not visible, can not be identified and once sold it disappears.