Give more young people a chance in the job market - introduce a RIT deduction!

The latest statistics from the Swedish Tax Agency speak for themselves. The ROT and RUT deductions are more popular than ever. In 2010, 62975 companies carried out ROT work for over 870000 people. In the case of RUT, 13516 companies performed services for almost 326000 people. ROT and RUT are thus natural elements in the lives of over a million Swedes.

The deductions have made black jobs white, created thousands of new jobs and businesses, eased the everyday life of many families with children and pensioners, and given young people, immigrants and low-skilled women an entry ticket to the labor market. These successes can now continue thanks to the Alliance government's renewed confidence in the fall elections.

However, the Center Party and Almega do not want to settle for this, we see more development opportunities. Therefore, we want the ROT and RUT deductions to be supplemented with a RIT deduction, a tax reduction for IT services in the home that would halve the cost for the buyers. This could involve, for example, installing and servicing computers, setting up a network or installing and setting up a printer. Today, this market is almost non-existent because the services are too expensive for private individuals.

But we know that interest is high. According to a survey commissioned by Demoskop in 2009, 18% of those interviewed said that they thought they would need IT services within a year. 78% of these said that an RIT deduction would increase their interest in buying the services. Almega has estimated that approximately 400,000 households will eventually demand RIT.

We see great opportunities for young people in particular to start businesses and work in IT services, as they have a great knowledge advantage in this area. A RIT deduction would undoubtedly speed up such a development. Calculations from Almega show that employment would increase by about 2,000 people - an important contribution to bringing down the still very high youth unemployment and both creating more jobs for young people and getting more young entrepreneurs. But also to make currently unpaid or black jobs white. Almega's calculations also show that the fiscal impact of the deduction would in principle be neutral, as increased tax revenue would match the public sector's costs for the deduction.

In addition, there are reasons to believe that a RIT deduction would have other positive effects on society. For example, the use of technology in the home would likely increase, which would strengthen the IT skills and digital participation of groups that are currently weak in the information society. This is the case, for example, for older people or people with a migrant background. If they can be helped at a reasonable cost to get troublesome IT equipment to work, they too can take part in digital development. This, in turn, could affect how efficiently we work and thus result in increased productivity and higher growth in the long run.

Harness the skills of young people and empower more people to be part of the digital society - introduce a RIT deduction!

ANNIE JOHANSSON (C)
economic spokesperson

ULF LINDBERG
Head of Industrial Policy, Almega

Published: SvD Brännpunkt 2011-03-02