Tax bill for one million Danes

Around one million tax payers risk a bad start to their weekend once Skat has their annual tax statements for 2009 at the ready on Friday.

Usually, two Danes in three get tax returns, while one in three will have to pay back taxes, writes daily newspaper Jyllands-Posten.

And Skat doesn't expect 2009 to break with that tradition.

- Danes are not very good at filing correct taxes. Some use Skat as a bank by estimating their taxes to be slightly high so that they can be sure to get money back. And that's fine. But I'm worried about those who get a tax bill, as that may be a problem for the individual taxpayer, and for the arrears, chief manager of Skat, Richard Hanlov, tells Jyllands-Posten.

Skat are not ready to announce the order of magnitude of the combined tax bills they will be sending out.

But Richard Hanlov fears that the trend during recent years that the sum is increasing will continue. Last year, one million Danes were compelled to pay a total of DKK 10 billion to Skat, while two million Danes received a collective sum of DKK 12.8 billion back from tax authorities.

The rising tax bills may be due to Danes increasingly shirking the responsibility, leaving it up to others, thinks Richard Hanlov.

- We Danes are no longer poring over our tax returns because most of it is automatic. That probably leads a lot of people to believe that everything is under control. But then, when something happens, like we get fired, divorces, or there are changes to our interest rates, people don't adjust their preliminary assessment of income accordingly, he tells Jyllands-Posten.

Translated by Martin Lamberth