This report concerns the Ministry of Taxation’s efforts to ensure that the state avoids losses when companies go bankrupt.
The purpose of the study is to assess whether the Ministry of Taxation’s efforts to prevent companies from going bankrupt with debt to the state are satisfactory. Rigsrevisionen answer the following questions in the report:
- Has the Danish Tax Agency justified its approval of high-risk businesses applying for registration for VAT and A-tax?
- Has the Danish Tax Agency responded to companies that repeatedly fail to submit VAT and A-tax returns?
- Has the Danish Debt Collection Agency initiated a debt-collection effort towards indebted companies before they go bankrupt?
Rigsrevisionen assesses that the Ministry of Taxation’s efforts to prevent companies from going bankrupt with debt to the state are not satisfactory. Approximately 15,000 companies went bankrupt between June 2021 and December 2024. In many cases, the ministry has had few or no options to limit the state’s losses. However, among the roughly 6,000 companies where it was possible to prevent the build-up of debt, there were minor or major shortcomings in the efforts concerning about 2,200 companies. These 2,200 companies ended up with a total debt of approximately DKK 1.9 billion. The consequence of these shortcomings may be that the loss to the state has been unnecessarily large.
Rigsrevisionen initiated the study in October 2024.
Read the introduction and conclusion (PDF)