Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1944, Page 283

PRESENT-DAY PROBLEMS OF TAXATION
IN DENMARK
By Sven Rogind,
Lecturer of Economy in the Technical High School of Denmark, Copenhagen.
WHEN in 1903 tax on income and capital became a
fixed part of Danish state taxation, some people ex-
pressed their anxiety that it would be too easy for
the Ministers of Finance to procure increased capital by this
means. As soon as the whole system of assessment worked as it
was intended to do, it might, e. g., at a certain stage of the scale
of taxation be as easy to collect 2.2 or 2.5 per cent. of the in-
come stated as 2.0 per cent. or below, and presumably it was
also possible to collect 3.0 or 3.5, etc.
This anxiety was not quite unfounded to judge from the
metamorphoses undergone by the scale during the past 40 years
or so. Already before the outbreak of the present war, there was
a remarkable increase. As for the very high incomes taxation
now amounted to about 20 per cent. as against 2.5 as maximum
in the Act of 1903. Then there was the high increase in the
spring of 1940, which nearly trebled the yield of the state taxa-
tion on income. Corresponding rates have later been retained,
thus also the excess profits duty introduced on the same occasion.
Even a tax-payer belonging to the middle classes (e. g. with an
income of 10,000 Kr. after legally authorized deductions) must
now count on having to pay to the State 11—12 per cent. and
to the municipality (or parish) and the so-called Joint Settlement
Fund of the Municipalities a similar percentage. If he is resident
in a municipality with a particularly high assessment percentage,
the total taxation will probably amount to 25—30 per cent.,
and in cases of greater wealth the percentage of taxation may
perhaps even amount to 40 or 45 (e. g. with a taxable income
of 50,000 Kr.).
If these amounts of tax are compared with the gross income,
the aspect is somewhat brighter; for tax-payers like those men-
tioned must earn respectively about 12,000—15,000 Kr. and
about 70,000—75,000 Kr. in order to be able to figure in the
valuation lists with the taxable income stated, because, like every-
body else, they are allowed to deduct as large an amount as
Le Nord, 1944, 3-4
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