Businessman Ola Nordquist was required to pay over 125 percent in taxes by an elite group within the Swedish Tax Agency that wanted to crack down even on entirely legal tax planning. At least 89 employees have accessed his confidential files. When his lawyer requested a meeting with the director general, Fredrik Rosengren, the answer was no.

Lawyer Johan Eriksson, who represents Nordquist, is now appealing directly to the head of the authority and demanding answers to a number of questions about how the case has been handled, which he writes in an open letter in Affärsvärlden.

Rosengren took office as director general this spring. In an interview with Svenska Dagbladet in June, he admitted that there may have been overzealous employees and that the number of staff who accessed Nordquist’s files also raises questions for him. Eriksson wrote to him at that time and requested a meeting, but was denied.

Wanted to Create Their Own Precedent

Behind the taxation was the internal group AISS, which the Tax Agency states has now been disbanded. According to the group’s own governance document, it was to challenge even fully legal tax planning and create new precedents and regulations. According to Eriksson, this means the authority wanted to establish its own rules instead of following those decided by parliament.

As an example, he highlights the exit tax, a tax on those who move abroad. The Tax Agency proposed such a tax back in 2017, and the Andersson government began an inquiry into it, but the investigation was discontinued when the Kristersson government took office. Eriksson believes that the authority instead tried to introduce the tax via practice, without a parliamentary decision.

The Tax Agency has previously rejected the criticism. In a reply in Affärsvärlden in March 2025, the then director general Katrin Westling Palm wrote that the allegations are completely baseless and that it is part of the agency’s mission to pursue cases to clarify legal practice. She referred to the fact that the administrative court in Stockholm found it reasonable that the agency carries out special efforts to combat international tax evasion.

Stopped Disclosing Logs

Nordquist’s side requested logs showing who accessed his documents, which revealed that at least 89 employees had been in the files, despite the information being protected by absolute confidentiality. A manager linked to AISS is said to have spent three holidays going through Nordquist’s digital files without working on the case.

The logs were disclosed on three occasions. When a prosecutor opened an investigation into data breaches, the Tax Agency stopped releasing the logs, not only to Nordquist but also to several others who requested insight into their cases. Eriksson says the authority thereby also disregarded the principle of public access to official records.

Dispute About 125 Percent

The Tax Agency disputes that Nordquist paid 125 percent in taxes. According to the authority, the figure arises when taxes and charges for both companies and individuals across several levels are combined, wrote Westling Palm and a departmental head in an opinion piece in Expressen in June 2025. The matter concerns withdrawal taxation and coupon tax for a transfer of assets, as well as income taxation and employer contributions for a paid compensation.

The dispute involves about 100 million kronor and the profit-sharing model carried interest in the private equity industry. The administrative court rejected the double taxation of Nordquist on the same matter, but when the 14 million kronor the court ruled he was entitled to were not paid out, he was forced to turn to the Enforcement Authority, as Affärsvärlden previously reported. In September 2025, Westling Palm was summoned to the parliamentary tax committee to explain herself.

Eriksson also criticizes how she handled the case. Together with two deputies, she wrote about Nordquist on the Tax Agency’s website, intranet, and in Expressen, mentioning an influence campaign against the authority. The hearing before the tax committee also made Nordquist’s tax returns and personal finances public.

Eriksson urges Rosengren to break the culture of silence and appoint an external review of how Nordquist was treated and taxed.

– It should be in your interest to do what is right, even if it shows that the Tax Agency has made mistakes, he writes.