Is VAT a consumption tax or a corporate tax?

This report identifies the purposes of the Swedish VAT Act and its preparatory work to determine if the Swedish VAT can be regarded as a consumption tax, ie. that the burden of the tax can be passed on from those who are taxable to the consumer. The object or purposes of VAT have been discussed before, in terms of whether it is to be regarded as a consumption tax or corporate tax. If legal preconditions for passing the tax burden are wholly or partly lacking in various areas, the question arise whether VAT is to be considered as a corporate tax instead of a consumption tax, or a hybrid where one part of the tax burden is carried by companies and one part of the tax burden is carried by those who consume. In that case, VAT is both a consumption tax and a corporate tax.