In 2022,  300 audits were conducted by Skatteverket, but only 35% of them were approved without any changes regarding the R&D financial claim numbers.

Most companies are under the impression that the application for this relief is largely tax-focused, but the reality of it is that the discussion is more of a technical topic. When Skatteverket audit your claim, they mainly challenge the R&D aspects of your project because the calculation for your deduction is straight forward.

As mentioned by many Swedish professional federations, the tax administration has a strict interpretation of what can be considered as R&D. To understand whether or not your project is R&D, you need to know the criteria defined by the law, the Frascati manual, as well as court cases that help provide guidelines to define what constitutes as qualified R&D within the framework of the Law.

Moreover, when a tax audit is triggered, there is usually little time to adequately compile a response to the enquiry from Skatteverket.

There can be a high financial risk for your company which can lead to the full refund of the applied relief, with additional penalty fees in some cases (up to 40%).