3/2008. SKAT's (Danish tax authorities) compliance strategy

The report is about SKAT's performance management, objectives, strategy and planning of the action directed at citizens and companies that are not paying the taxes which they are required to according to the Danish tax legislation.

Since 2007, SKAT's work has been organized in accordance with new objectives and a new compliance strategy, which in combination provides the platform for SKAT's efforts to maximize direct and indirect tax revenues. The objective of the changes implemented in SKAT's objectives and strategy is to increase tax receipts related to the ordinary tax collection by focusing on the prevention of errors instead of checking and adjusting errors in tax declarations.

The nature of SKAT's objectives and strategy is relatively new in a Danish and international context. As objectives and strategy are both of significant importance to SKAT's operations and Denmark's total tax revenues, Rigsrevisionen has conducted a major examination of SKAT's change of strategy.

The purpose of the examination is to assess, whether SKAT's performance management, objectives, compliance strategy, and planning are overall satisfactory, and whether there is scope for improvement. The examination was initiated in February 2008 at Rigsrevisionen's initiative.