Review of The Making of Tax Law: The Development of the Swedish Tax System
Reprinted with the permission of Tax Analysts.
Abstract
Imagine that a single person had been responsible for all U.S. tax reforms enacted from 1974 to 2012. That was the position of Sven-Olof Lodin, the former president of the International Fiscal Association. For more than 40 years, professor Lodin was the most influential voice in Swedish tax policy. This was not in a single, official governmental capacity, but rather as a member of more than 20 government commissions and working parties on taxation, which were responsible for all the major changes in Swedish tax law in recent decades, including the "Tax Reform of the Century" in 1991. In this insightful and important book, Lodin describes in detail how the Swedish tax system evolved from 1948 to 2010. As a result, the reader gains a deep understanding of the Swedish political process and how it led to tax policy changes. Lodin also provides interesting descriptions of all the major political players.