When someone tries to make a tax deduction in their annual tax return, more than half the time it's for something that cannot be deducted.

The tax authority Skat checked 1,800 tax returns and found that 52 percent of them attempted to make unentitled deductions.

Skat says unentitled deductions, which add up to a combined 67 million kroner, are made both by those trying to cheat the system and those who are unaware of the rules.

Bad deductions
“We experience people trying to make deductions that don’t exist,” Skat's deputy director, Mogens Pedersen, stated in a press release. “These are deductions primarily for personal items such as toothbrushes, clothes, shoes, telephones, tablets, rent, medicine, private cars and childcare.”

The high number of bad deductions has led Skat to increase its efforts to let Danes know what they can, and cannot, claims deductions for.

“We are intensifying our control in the most error-prone areas while also starting an information campaign to increase people’s awareness of what deductions are allowed,” Pedersen said.

The campaign will run for another six months, during which time Skat hopes to find and correct bad deductions worth 100 million kroner.