18 - 24 November 2011
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For the fallen ... As the Commonwealth remembers its war dead, a Dane uncovers the bodies of some missing British airmen. And for Frederik Hansen, serving in Afghanistan is a job where the rules are simple and the co-workers are professional
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18 - 24 November 2011 | Vol 14 Issue 41
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NEWS
Prosecutors are confident that 20-year-old DNA evidence will confirm that the man standing trial is the ‘Amager Attacker’
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NEWS
Wind power grows up As our consumption of the alternative energy increases, power companies say its future lies offshore
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BUSINESS
All eyes on the spies Intelligence service PET under scrutiny for the way it conducts its business
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Put a group of entrepreneurs in the same place for 54 hours, and what do you get? Startup Weekend attendees hope the answer is ‘a new business’
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Acts of resistance Toppling a dictator takes courage, but it also takes ingenuity and mischievousness, says Amnesty International advocacy director
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Top aide accused of interfering in PM’s tax audit JENNIFER BULEY Political bulkheads between the ministry and tax service were not as “watertight” as claimed
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HE INCOME tax investigation that last year nearly thwarted Helle Thorning-Schmidt’s hopes of becoming prime minister is back again. But now it is threatening to bring down a top civil servant. Peter Loft, the right-hand man at the Tax Ministry both before and after the September 15 general election, stands accused of interfering with an investigation into whether ThorningSchmidt paid enough taxes between 2000 and 2008. At the time of the investigation, Troels Lund Poulsen (Venstre) was tax
In the weeks that followed, Loft minister, and Thorning-Schmidt (Socialdemokraterne) was the opposition met with Andersen about Thorningleader and number one contender to Schmidt’s audit three more times, ultimately sending Skat Copenhagen a unseat the centre-right prime minister. On 22 August 2010, after news of paragraph to include in its final ruling, her alleged tax problems broke, Loft according to Politiken. Skat ruled that Thorning-Schmidt told the press he had no knowledge of the details of her audit and indeed no inadvertently had paid too little in tax, based on an incorrect ‘diplomatic’ deright to know about them. “There are watertight bulkheads be- duction she had been claiming for her tween us and, in this case, the Copenha- husband, Stephen Kinnock, while he gen division of [tax authority] Skat. We was working in Switzerland from 2000 have to keep a distance from the actual until 2008. She was made to pay back case, and I haven’t looked into the spe- taxes for 2006-2008, but not for 20002005, as the statute of limitations had cifics of it,” he said. However, information obtained by run out for those years. Various commentators have exPolitiken newspaper last week revealed that Loft in fact had already met two pressed shock that Loft, a trusted and times – on August 10 and 13 – with Er- distinguished administrator with the ling Andersen, the manager of Skat Co- Tax Ministry for more than three decades, under both right and left-of-centre penhagen, precisely to discuss Thorn- a personal Organise meeting governments, would be implicated in ing-Schmidt’s tax audit.
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such a gross breach of conduct. Ole Stavad, a Socialdemokrat tax minister from 1993 to 1994, described Loft as “the most proper and honest civil servant you could imagine”. Others are now speculating whether Loft interfered in the ThorningSchmidt audit of his own volition or at the behest of his boss, the then-tax minister Poulsen. Poulsen has refused to comment, claiming confidentiality. The new tax minister, Thor Möger Pedersen (Socialistisk Folkeparti), has asked Loft and Andersen for written explanations of their involvement in the investigation. The police are now also involved in looking into how Skat’s confidential ruling on Thorning-Schmidt’s tax payments wound up in the hands of B.T. tabloid just days before the election.
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