tax evasion
Intentional evasion of tax by submitting incorrect information to the authorities
Tax evasion is the intentional act in which a person or a business knowingly evades tax owed to the public purse by submitting incorrect, misleading or incomplete information for use in the tax assessment. Under Danish law, the concept has no single statutory definition, but is used as an overarching designation for criminal conduct regulated by several provisions.
The central penal provision on tax evasion is found in the Danish Tax Control Act (skattekontrolloven) § 82(1), under which a person who, with intent to evade tax owed to the public purse, submits incorrect, misleading or incomplete information to the tax authorities may be punished by a fine or imprisonment for up to 1 year and 6 months. The requirement of intent is decisive: negligent errors in a tax return are not in themselves punishable as tax evasion.
In cases of particularly serious violations, the matter may instead fall under the Danish Penal Code (straffeloven) § 289, which concerns intentional violations of a particularly serious nature of the tax and duty legislation. This provision is applied in cases of systematic and planned evasion of substantial amounts and carries a significantly higher maximum penalty than the provision of the Tax Control Act.
Tax evasion differs from administrative misreporting precisely in the element of intent — it is the deliberate purpose of obtaining an unwarranted tax advantage for oneself or others that constitutes the criminal offence. In practice, tax evasion is seen in the form of concealed income, false deductions or the deliberate omission of assets from the tax return.
