Extension of the Tax Base

Abstract

Income taxation was originally founded very much on the same principles in the Scandinavian countries. According to the’ source’ theory, tax laws enumerated certain sources of income, and the concept of income was defined to be the revenue flowing from these sources. Capital gains were thus not included in the concept of income. They were only taxed when they were regarded as’ speculative’, i. e. the result of a certain mental effort. Generally a capital gain was supposed to be speculative if the asset had been acquired by a commercial transaction and not held for more than a certain period of time.