The third largest bank in Denmark, Jyske Bank, was exposed this week for its tax advice on offshore financial havens, in a documentary that marked the first news report to use ICIJ’s Offshore Leaks data in Denmark.
The program was the third of four investigative documentaries in a broader series on offshore finance, entitled “Inside tax havens,” produced by ICIJ’s Danish partner, the documentary department at the Danish Broadcasting Corporation (DR Dokumentar).
A journalist from DR Dokumentar visited Jyske Bank’s subsidiary in Zürich, Switzerland, posing as a businessman and filming with a hidden camera. The journalist later met with the bank in London and Copenhagen.
Although the bank’s official policy is that it doesn’t advice Danes to move their money to tax havens, that is exactly what happened.
The journalist told the bank that while living in Denmark, he had invented an app that a Danish company would pay him around $725,000 to purchase. Danish law states that in this situation he would have to pay tax in Denmark even if he left the country, according to experts consulted by DR Dokumentar.
Jyske Bank advised the journalist to move to England, create a company in Gibraltar, and place his money with Jyske Bank Zürich.
It also advised him to wait a couple of months after he left Denmark before collecting the $725,000, in order to avoid paying tax on the deal in Denmark.
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