Iceland’s Directorate of Tax Investigations (DTI) is kicking off an investigation into possible serious tax fraud of 30 individuals in Iceland. The move is based on a set of data, bought earlier this year, holding information about 416 potential tax evaders.
Tax evasion is a crime in Iceland and conviction may result in fines and imprisonment.
The dataset holds information about Icelanders that have presumably hid their assets abroad.
The DTI was offered to buy the information in the spring of 2014 by an anonymous seller. As the data was most likely stolen it raised some questions. Can the state buy something illegally obtained?
In the end Iceland followed the lead of Germany. When facing the same question several years ago German authorities famously marched on, paid millions of euros for similar information, brought the sinners to justice and collected huge sums for the treasury.
In September Minister of finance, Bjarni Benediktsson announced that he would propose a bill this autumn offering Icelanders, who have hid their taxable assets abroad, amnesty if they turn themselves over to authorities.
The bill has still not been proposed, but if it becomes law, tax fraudsters will not face time behind bars if they turn themselves in, pay their taxes, plus added penalties.
Read more: Financial minister Bjarni accused of nepotism
The unknown seller received around 37 million ISK (EUR 260.000/USD 294.000) for the 416 cases within the data set.
Iceland’s Directorate of Tax Investigations (DTI) is kicking off an investigation into possible serious tax fraud of 30 individuals in Iceland. The move is based on a set of data, bought earlier this year, holding information about 416 potential tax evaders.
Tax evasion is a crime in Iceland and conviction may result in fines and imprisonment.
The dataset holds information about Icelanders that have presumably hid their assets abroad.
The DTI was offered to buy the information in the spring of 2014 by an anonymous seller. As the data was most likely stolen it raised some questions. Can the state buy something illegally obtained?
In the end Iceland followed the lead of Germany. When facing the same question several years ago German authorities famously marched on, paid millions of euros for similar information, brought the sinners to justice and collected huge sums for the treasury.
In September Minister of finance, Bjarni Benediktsson announced that he would propose a bill this autumn offering Icelanders, who have hid their taxable assets abroad, amnesty if they turn themselves over to authorities.
The bill has still not been proposed, but if it becomes law, tax fraudsters will not face time behind bars if they turn themselves in, pay their taxes, plus added penalties.
Read more: Financial minister Bjarni accused of nepotism
The unknown seller received around 37 million ISK (EUR 260.000/USD 294.000) for the 416 cases within the data set.
