Today, Bildt is the first to insist that Sweden will need more than political cyberchat for its tech wave to succeed. He excitedly offers visitors a set of headphones plugged into his Ericsson mobile phone, complete with MP3 player, which can download music from the Internet. When in Stockholm, Bildt occupies a corner office across from Parliament, where he works amid a mound of papers as Larry King Live flickers in the background and emails pop up on his screen. In an interview with Forbes ASAP, Bildt warned that Swedes should not be blinded by their own success. Last year's performance notwithstanding, the tech revolution has succeeded so far despite the welfare state-not because of it.
Foreign money is treated better in Sweden than Swedish money, from the tax point of view.
You avoid quite a lot of the taxes on capital gains. And that means that Swedish money can't compete on the same terms as foreign money in Sweden. So, we've been avoiding the Swedish tax system in that respect by moving the Swedish money abroad and then having it operate in Sweden. I've asked every company whose board I'm on if anyone has read the law and the market regulations. No one has, no one intends to, and no one thinks it's particularly relevant.