Officials Try Alternate Route to Taxing ABBA Star

The Swedish Tax Authority is taking another route in its attempts to get a former member of ABBA to pay millions in allegedly undeclared royalties.According to published reports, tax officials want ABBA co-founder Bjorn Ulvaeus to pay $2.1 million for undeclared royalties from the music group’s hits. In May 2006 the authority claimed that Ulvaeus owed almost $13 million in back taxes, fees and interest on unpaid taxes related to contracts he signed before moving to England in 1984.

The authority has claimed that those contracts, which handed the rights to Ulvaeus' ABBA royalties as well as the musicals he has written more recently to companies, were a sham and that Ulvaeus still had access to the money contained in the havens.

The tax authority agreed to reduce the 2006 claim to around $9.5 million, but Ulvaeus appealed the case, which is still pending.

Sweden's income taxes, with a top rate of nearly 60 percent, are among the highest in the world.

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