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MONEY

Denmark scraps popular tax deduction for home improvements

A tax deduction for home improvements, the “håndværkerfradrag”, is to be scrapped in 2022 after parties agreed to end it in next year’s budget.

A popular tax subsidy for home improvements, the
A popular tax subsidy for home improvements, the "håndværkerfradrag", will end in Denmark on April 1st 2022. Photo: Signe Goldmann/Ritzau Scanpix

The government, along with its left wing allies Red Green Alliance, Social Liberals and Socialist People’s Party; and minor parties Alternative and the Christian Democrats, presented the 2022 budget on Monday, including an agreement to drop the home building subsidy.

Sofie Carsten Nielsen, leader of the Social Liberals, said “we are dropping the building subsidy that has ignited the already overheated housing and construction market”.

READ ALSO: Four ways to (legally) lower your tax bill in Denmark

The tax deduction will be removed from April 1st next year. Other tax deductions that can be applied for home services, including cleaning and childcare, are retained.

Tax subsidies for people who hire services in their homes, termed boligjobordningen, were broadened last year as part of government measures to support the economy during the coronavirus crisis.

The provision allowed for a higher tax deduction for the encompassed home services.

Demand for builders has since increased so dramatically that supply can no longer meet demand. As such, the parties behind the budget deal reason that the deduction is no longer needed.

Additionally, the Danish central bank, Nationalbanken, has warned that high demand could contribute to an overheating of the housing market.

Although the deduction was adjusted five years ago to favour green home improvements, the government’s allied parties still maintained they wanted to scrap it.

Nielsen said on Monday that the deduction has put Denmark’s building trade under strain.

“This is an economically responsible budget which also contains huge green decisions,” the Social Liberal leader said.

Finance Minister Nicolai Wammen said that the deduction would remain applicable to other trades, including cleaning, in order to prevent cash-in-hand arrangements.

“The biggest challenge we have in regard to the Danish service industry is in building and extensions. That’s why we are revoking the building element of the (subsidies),” Wammen said.

“But we are very concerned with keeping down cash-in-hand work in the service sector,” he added.

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MONEY

Danish agency criticised for failure to collect child support debts from abroad

Denmark’s parliamentary ombudsman has criticised the Danish Debt Collection Agency (Gældsstyrelsen) for failing to prioritise debts related to child support payments from persons who reside abroad.

Danish agency criticised for failure to collect child support debts from abroad

The child support payment, børne- og underholdsbidrag or more commonly børnebidrag in Danish, must generally be paid by one parent of a child to the other of the other if they do not live together.

But the Debt Collection Agency has done too little to collect payments of the contribution from abroad, the Ombudsman said in a press statement on Tuesday.

“Collection of child support contributions are of major importance for the financial circumstances in many homes,” ombudsman Niels Fenger said in the statement.

“It is therefore criticisable that the agency has, for almost five years, generally not promoted the collection of these contributions,” the watchdog added.

According to the Danish Debt Collection Agency, some 12,500 persons outside of Denmark have outstanding debts related to the child payments, totalling 2.3 billion kroner.

Collection of the money has been complicated by a lack of procedures in the area, the agency said.

Instead of sending requests to authorities in the relevant countries for collection of the debt, the Danish Debt Collection Agency has prioritised assisting foreign authorities in collecting debts outstanding in Denmark, it told the Ombudsman.

It also said that it would now prioritise collecting the Danish debts, and would produce a plan for the work.

This plan will be shared with the Ombudsman when it is completed later this year.

A large amount of debt is tied up in an old system, DMI, which does not allow wage deductions as a method of collection. A new system, PRSM, does enable this.

The agency is therefore working to transfer many of the debts from the old system to the new one, it reported to the Ombudsman.

READ ALSO: Denmark uses new method to collect debt from public

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