The Left Party wants to introduce a tax on banks’ excess profits.
The goal, according to the party, is to help Swedish households that are being squeezed hard by rising mortgage interest rates and high inflation.
The proposal will be presented during party leader Nooshi Dadgostar’s summer speech in Gothenburg on Saturday. According to V, a so-called oligopoly tax of 50 percent of the banks’ excess profits should be introduced starting in 2024 up to and including 2026.
According to Dadgostar, the tax revenue must go directly to maintaining the number of employees in welfare.
The banks’ rapidly rising profits have given rise to several heated debates recently. For the second quarter of the year, Nordea, Swedbank and SEB, for example, reported substantial profit increases – something that, among other things, caused Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson (M) to open up to possible measures.
It is not the first time the Left Party has criticized the banking sector. Earlier this summer, V proposed that the state-owned bank SBAB be used to “press the big banks to lower mortgage interest rates”.