We bring analytical awareness of how algorithms are theorized in society and culture especially attending to algorithms normative impact and how they thus shape society. We propose a nuanced discussion to how social scientists think about algorithms in relation to five theoretical ideal types.

Humans just do not use algorithmic results. In this article we address the interaction between algorithmic outputs and the humans engaging with them by drawing on studies of two distinct empirical fields – self-quantification and audit controls of taxpayers. We introduce the concept of recalibration to understand the practices and processes involved in this interaction.

Summing up a large comparative research project, this article presents key features of the OECD promoted cooperative compliance model (a collaboration between tax administrations and MNE’s) in its practical implementation and operation. We propose seven universal dimensions of practice based on a qualitative comparison of cooperative compliance programmes in six Northern European jurisdictions.

This article explores stakeholders’ moral reasoning in order to illuminate on the contradiction between the “successful” Swedish Tax Agency and the “failure” of a project aiming to make multinational corporations collaborate with the Agency. Borrowing from Didier Fassin’s moral anthropological approach make this failure more understandable.

This chapter follows a Swedish cooperative compliance project introduced in 2011 and its modified relaunch in 2014. The Swedish Tax Agency proposed a project that carried with it international success stories from similar projects, but in the Swedish version and context met with strong resistance. The article proposes eight aspects that have to be paid attention to when implementing cooperative compliance initiatives.

Assessing tax gap numbers is a challenge, communicating them is even more fickle. This article describes the perils of calculating the Swedish tax gap number and reveals examples of its careless usage by various Swedish stakeholders. It is an example of a number that performs a dual function: on the one hand mobilizing people’s morals and subsequent commitments and on the other hand measuring such commitments.

This is the story of a collaborative project involving the creation, development and teaching of a course on qualitative research, which was designed for all Swedish Tax Agency analysts. This is not just a story about collaboration between academia and tax authority, but also one about how interdisciplinary approaches creates new knowledge.

How does a tax collecting agency distinguishes between taxable and tax-free income when the law says that all that all exchanges having value constitutes income? ’Common sense’ is here used as a frame for the boundary work that the Agency engage in, based on legislation, courtroom decisions, and praxis-while paying attention to societal legitimacy.

Det är ingen hemlighet att svartköp är olagligt. Ändå existerar en kvittofri marknad, som nästan hälften av alla svenskar utnyttjar. Ett sätt att legitimera svarta tjänster är att flytta köpet från marknaden till en intimare, privat sfär.

This article explores the tensions between buying and bartering in contemporary Sweden by analyzing the acceptable purchase of informal work. A commonplace phenomenon, but also widely debated, as it is seen as detrimental to welfare society, eroding taxpaying morals and solidarity with fellow citizens.

Drawing on the notion of legal complex, this article addresses knowledge production at the Swedish Tax Agency’s while it strives for legitimacy. In a para-ethnographic vein, the Agency creates knowledge about taxpayers from regulations, research, statistical results, stories, hunches and examples from everyday life including those of the participating observer.

Svart arbete är utbrett i Sverige. Det finns olika uppskattningar av omfattningen av denna samhällsekonomiska företeelse och många tolkningar av orsaken. Omfattningen i Sverige jämfört med andra liknande länder har av vissa ansetts vara mindre (Skatteverket 2006:4:493), av andra större (t.ex. European Commission 2007:284:10; Schneider 1997). De flesta svenskar verkar ha synpunkter på detta samhällsfenomen och förklaringarna till det liksom rättfärdiganden av det är mångfasetterade. En vanlig ekonomisk motivering är att ”det är billigare”, en mer normativ säger ”att alla gör det” och en tredje refererar till det som skall diskuteras i detta kapitel – nämligen medborgarnas krav och förväntningar på välfärdssamhället.