Minister says government has begun cleaning up ROT fraud

Financial Markets Minister Niklas Wykman says the government has increased funding for the Swedish Tax Agency to help combat crime, SVT reports. “We have begun a thorough cleanup of fraud and criminality,” he said.

Wykman was responding to an investigation by SVT programme Uppdrag granskning, which exposed a gap in the Tax Agency’s controls. A consulting company in Västerås managed to receive more than one million in ROT compensation without carrying out a single construction job.

Wykman said the investigation was valuable because it created an opportunity to make improvements.

“We are doing more from the start of the year, but the fight against crime and criminality must always continue,” he said.

According to Wykman, the government has allocated hundreds of millions to the Tax Agency for this work. He said progress had been made in many areas, but from very high levels.

Tax Agency Director General Fredrik Rosengren said the investigation showed that no payment system, including ROT, was completely immune to incorrect payments or fraud.

“It is outrageous, and I get extremely angry about every penny that wrongly disappears from the system,” Rosengren said.