Sweden’s Tax Agency is seeking about SEK 540 million, or roughly $56.5 million, in back taxes and penalties from six crypto mining companies in the northern city of Boden. The agency said the companies used complex corporate structures to conceal mining activity and present the business as ordinary data processing operations in order to obtain tax benefits they were not entitled to claim.
Tax agency says mining activity was hidden behind data center structures
The case centers on six companies based in Boden. Swedish tax authorities said the firms deliberately concealed their crypto mining operations to access tax reductions that were intended for standard data processing centers.
Patrik Lillqvist, head of intelligence at the Swedish Tax Agency, said the companies hid their mining business through complicated corporate arrangements. According to local outlet SVT, the firms used those structures to cover up their involvement in crypto mining and secure tax relief that was designed for conventional data processing facilities.
Lillqvist said: "You come to a society and steal from it."
Audit covering 2024 to 2026 assessed nine companies nationwide
The enforcement action grew out of a Swedish Tax Agency audit of the crypto industry conducted from 2024 to 2026. Across the country, nine crypto companies were assessed more than $50 million in unpaid taxes and penalties, with the six Boden firms making up the bulk of that total.
Appeals have failed so far, while Bikupan Datacenter enters restructuring
Several of the targeted companies appealed, but both the administrative court and the court of appeal upheld the tax authority’s findings. Bikupan Datacenter, one of the companies involved, has entered financial restructuring after failing to meet its tax obligations and is now appealing to Sweden’s Supreme Administrative Court.
Bikupan Datacenter operates facilities in Boden and Robertsfors. Its parent company is Hive Digital Technologies Ltd. Johanna Törnblad, the company’s CEO and Hive Digital’s country manager for Sweden, rejected the allegations.
She said: "We do not agree with the Swedish Tax Agency’s assessment of Hive’s historical operations, because crypto mining itself was carried out by external mining pools independent of the Hive group." She also argued that Hive group companies sold computing capacity that could be used for AI workloads as well, rather than directly taking part in mining.
Boden has become a focal point for Swedish mining scrutiny
The report said SVT Norrbotten disclosed in 2024 that crypto mining operations had defrauded the Swedish government of about $100 million, with most of the activity concentrated in Boden. During the tax agency’s four-year investigation, 13 of 18 targeted mining companies were located there.
The Swedish government has previously criticized crypto mining for consuming large amounts of energy while providing little real economic value. The tax agency’s intelligence chief also said the geographic concentration was deliberate, with crypto firms targeting smaller municipalities and using promises of jobs, economic development, and higher tax revenue to win local cooperation.