Thursday, March 15, 2012

Culturally Enriched Tax Fraud in Denmark

Cultural Enrichment News

The article below was translated from Jyllands-Posten by Nicolai Sennels. The translation was originally posted at Vlad Tepes.


They donate money to their mosques, use Islamic hawala banking, demand interest-free Islamic loans and threaten non-Muslims in Western ghettos to pay Islamic jizya. But they do not follow the non-Sharia laws on paying taxes to the non-Islamic state. Translated from Jyllands-Posten, March 11th 2012 “Massive tax evasion in ghettos”:

Revenue has been doing a thorough investigation in 26 residential areas and revealed attempted tax evasion of 40 million kr. (7 million USD). In turns out that in 2011 massive and systematic cheating on taxes has occurred in all 26 residential areas that Revenue has been particularly thorough in investigating.

In 908 cases Revenue noted that either individuals or companies have evaded tax or VAT. It leads to demands for arrears of about 40 million.

Revenue is also investigating whether 139 of the cases should lead to a charge of grossly negligent or deliberate VAT or tax evasion. Finally, Revenue sent 152 cases to the commune because of benefit fraud. For example, 10 fathers had addresses in the same two-bedroom apartment, so their wives featured as single parents, and thereby got higher benefits.

A widespread method among employees to evade tax has been to abuse the so-called TastSelv system (that allows tax payers to set their own tax deduction). A large number of employees in the 26 neighborhoods entered fictitious commuting, employee expenses and maintenance, so that they had to pay much less tax than they should. It was often round figures and deductions were without real substance, says the head of the Tax Administration work project, Erik Rosenbæk:

‘Our studies suggest that large deductions for employees in TastSelv is systematic within certain jobs. In other cases, we could see the same behavior in whole families.’

Among the more than 500 companies that have been investigated, it appeared, in some cases that holders received a disability pension or other social services alongside income from running their businesses (which is illegal).

The companies also lied about their turnover. For instance, a pizzeria claimed that its annual turnover was only 80,000 kr. (14,000 USD), but as the pizzeria also had a convenience service with ordering over the Internet, Revenue could see that the pizzeria had had orders for more than 900,000 kroner via the internet alone. This led to large arrears of both tax and VAT.

Revenue’s efforts in the ghettos was initiated in 2011, when Revenue was commissioned to investigate the extent of tax evasion and possible benefit fraud in 26 Danish residential areas, selected by the Ministry of Social Affairs.

These areas are characterized by having many residents who are out of work and with a high proportion of immigrants and their descendants. The previous government called the areas ghettos. The new (Leftist) government will not use the word ghetto, but call them vulnerable neighborhoods.

Minister for Revenue Thor Möger Pedersen (Socialist People’s Party) says of the Tax Administration efforts:

‘I am very negatively surprised by the results. Frankly, it is disturbing and very unsatisfactory that there are such massive problems in complying with laws and regulations on tax, VAT and social services in these 26 critical areas. We will not accept that in some areas of Denmark there exists a kind of parallel economy in which the participants will only reap the benefits of the welfare state, but do not participate in the financing,’ says Minister for Revenue.

Thor Möger Pedersen adds that he got the clear impression from Revenue that it is not because people might not have lived in Denmark for so many years and are therefore ignorant about the law.

‘Revenue are shocked. Evidence suggests that it is not ignorance concerning the rules, but rather deliberate cheating. Regardless of where you were born, you must follow the rules. Tax evasion is antisocial behavior. There is no reason to ignore these problems. An important prerequisite for integration is that we ensure an understanding that black economy and benefit fraud is unacceptable,’ said the minister.

He announces that although the Tax Administration project from the budget from last year has expired, Revenue will still pay extra attention to in the so-called vulnerable neighborhoods.


For a complete listing of previous enrichment news, see The Cultural Enrichment Archives.

4 comments:

Nemesis said...

Surely the millions of Kroner the Danish government is missing out on from the 'vulnerable neighborhoods' is a small price to pay for all the 'cultural enrichment' that those neighborhoods have given to the Danes?

It will be interesting to see if this is pursued by the state, or will the whole thing just die from lack of political will?

bewick said...

Much as I might like to think that this an issue mainly related to Islam it isn't. It may be more prevalent amongst muslim communities but is actually common amongst those descending from the Indian sub-continent - of whatever faith. Tax evasion is endemic there and the practice has been imported here.
Why do I say that? Well I have Sikh friends who run a corner shop. At one point they asked me to look at their books. I did. I suddenly realised that they lived rather better than the official books would suggest. At the time my own income was rather more than their declared income yet they could afford much more. Part of that was because they took off the shelves anything they needed making that half the price that I would pay. They also raided the till for takeways, clothes and much else. No accounting whatever. They were honest in their reasoning and said “the money in the till is ours – WE earned it”. Despite both being born here they really believed that to be a fact and acceptable They also, wrongly, believed that income tax was not payable in India
The Mother of one, living in the UK for over 40 years, can hardly speak English. When her husband died he, unlike my father and every Englishman, left NOTHING to his wife. He expected, culturally, that his sons would look after their mother. They have. The woman though, upon reaching retirement age, was able to declare near poverty and claim every welfare benefit available. Yet she manages to travel to India 4 times a year and has built a mansion there ( A REAL mansion with marble floors) complete with servant’s quarters. I struggle to pay off my mortgage and am entitled to sod all in welfare benefits yet, in theory, I should be better off than them. They are FAR richer than myself.
Whilst I am sure that some indigenous Brit owners of corner shops flout the rules a little NONE of them manage to get away with such blatant abuse. I wish our Income tax authority, HMRC, was as vigilant as the Danish one seems. No chance – they would rather pursue me for an accidentally undeclared penny. Hell we cannot possibly risk upsetting the minorities now can we?

laine said...

How is this Muslim unwillingness to pay infidel taxes a surprise to anyone who has the most cursory knowledge of their belief system? The net money transfer has to be all one way, towards them from what they believe to be their inferiors at best, their enemies at worst. The weak westerners they consider all but conquered owe THEM jizya, not the other way around, as a reminder of their inferior status while undergoing colonization.

Green Infidel said...

I thought Muslims were brought in specifically to support elderly people through their pension contributions. Now you say they're not paying taxes? Shocking!

Then again, $7 million (split among a thousand culprits) is not a figure to break the bank for a country like Denmark. The real question - how much more is the Danish government not collecting due to cases that have evaded their attention - like the Sikh corner shop mentioned by Bewick??