The court in Greenland has found Municipality of Kujalleq guilty of having acted grossly negligently, since during 2023 and 2024 they did not pay A-tax on time for 10 months and completely failed to pay for three months.
Therefore, they must pay a fine of 4,000,000 kroner to the Danish Tax Agency.
This is apparent from the judgment, which Sermitsiaq has been given access to.
The court bases the judgment on the fact that Municipality of Kujalleq had hidden and cumulative errors due to a lack of overview of system options, finances and payments, including a lack of overview of settlements of A-taxes and labour market contributions.
However, according to the court, this could not be considered an excusing circumstance.
Reported themselves to the Tax Agency
The witnesses also testified that the Tax Agency had not itself discovered that the Municipality of Kujalleq had not paid on time and therefore had not made advances for the payments. It was the municipality itself that contacted them about the missing payments.
However, this is not an excusing circumstance either, as it is a taxpayer's own responsibility to find out about and comply with their tax obligations.
On behalf of the Danish Tax Agency, the prosecution had sought a fine of 6.1 million, which corresponds to 1.5 percent of the amount owed.
However, the court has therefore concluded that the fine should be reduced to four million.
This is because the court considers it a mitigating circumstance that the Municipality of Kujalleq actually reported itself to the Danish Tax Agency.
It is also considered a mitigating circumstance that the Municipality of Kujalleq took out a loan and in the spring of 2025 paid back all outstanding amounts with accrued interest.
The state pays the costs of the case
The prosecution had also claimed that the Municipality of Kujalleq should pay the costs of the case - normally the state treasury pays, but the municipality should be liable for it, said prosecutor Kristian Buskov Nierhoff.
- They have simply been playing around for several years and will now not stand by it, and are spending even more of society's money by having the case processed in court, he said during his court proceedings.
But the Court of Greenland found no special circumstances to deviate from the starting point, and therefore the state must pay for the costs of the case.
