Paid staff use of company cars escapes VAT self-supply charge

An employee who pays for private use of the employer's passenger car receives a supply of services for consideration.Skatteverket No uttagsbeskattning (VAT self-supply charge) arisesSkatteverket, because a self-supply charge under 5 kap. 29 § mervärdesskattelagen (2023:200) (ML) presupposes a taxable transaction without considerationSkatteverket. This reverses the earlier position, under which a self-supply charge could still arise for a car-dealership employee's private use even though the employee paid for it.Skatteverket A service supplied at an underprice is instead a candidate for revaluation of the taxable amount, not a self-supply charge.

A free supply of services is made for rörelsefrämmande ändamål (purposes other than the business) unless the circumstances show it meets the supplier's own needs.Skatteverket Services consumed within the taxable person's own business, such as one department performing services for another unit of the same company, are not for non-business purposes. But services consumed by another person, even a company in the same group, can be non-business use, and the recipient's tax-law position does not affect the assessment. Giving services away normally benefits only the recipient, so a free supply consumed by another presumptively serves a non-business purposeSkatteverket; it escapes only where the services are strictly business expenditure clearly benefiting the supplier's own business.Skatteverket

A free trial offered purely to promote sales meets that test: letting non-customers try software free for 30 days to win new customers serves the supplier's own needs. Where no such benefit is shown the outcome flips: a construction company that renovates, free of charge with its own staff, a villa facade owned by a subsidiary acts for a non-business purpose, as does AB Y when it supplies data services to group company AB Z free for a year because Z's finances deteriorated while continuing to charge its other customers.

The 2011 position on self-supply charges for services for private or non-business use, dnr 131 205935-11/111, no longer appliesSkatteverket; the same substance, as developed in case law including C-607/20 GE Aircraft Engine Services and C-528/19 Mitteldeutsche Hartstein-Industrie, now stands without it. The change involves no change of substance.

The taxable amount (beskattningsunderlaget) on private use of a business asset other than a passenger car starts from all costs directly attributable to the asset and its useSkatteverket, provided input VAT on those costs was deductedSkatteverket, plus the scheduled depreciation (planenlig avskrivning) recognised in the accounts under accounting legislation and recommendations as the decline in valueSkatteverket. That covers the asset itself, running costs such as fuel, equipment, maintenance and storageSkatteverket; collective tax-driven depreciation under bokslutsdispositioner is excluded even where permitted for tax purposesSkatteverket. Costs are normally computed over a longer period such as a year but apportioned to the months of actual use: four months' business use plus four months' private use yields a private-use base of 4/8 of the annual cost. This replaces the 2005 position on boats and the 2009 position on business assets, with no change of substance; passenger cars remain under the special rule in 8 kap. 7 § MLSkatteverket.

A charge on use of an asset requires actual use for a non-business purpose; mere availability is not enough.Skatteverket Once Skatteverket has shown private use was possible, the taxable person must produce the records needed to assess business use, and without such records the charge rests on estimated private use, provided input VAT on the acquisition was deducted including for the privately used part.

Legal basis: 5 kap. 28-31 §§ and 8 kap. 6-7 §§ mervärdesskattelagen (2023:200), article 26 of the VAT Directive, and case law including C-607/20 GE Aircraft Engine Services, C-581/08 EMI Group, C-371/07 Danfoss and AstraZeneca and RÅ 2008 ref. 72.