At the end of 2010, Danes and companies owed the public coffers some DKK72.9bn in unpaid taxes, parking and other fines and payments to pre-schools.

Debts to the state continue to rise apace, and the public auditors have called on the minister to explain how he intends to solve the problem.

But Tax Minister Thor Möger Pedersen and his staff seem to have accepted that it will be a hopeless task to recover the full amount. Realistically, the authorities expect to be able to recover DKK36bn, while most of the remaining DKK37bn is probably lost as older debt.

“Among others there are some people who owe the public coffers a lot of money, but who simply cannot pay,” the minister says.

National tax authorities have been responsible for recovering debts since 2005, in a task that was previously held by local government.

Central to national tax authority efforts is a new digital system known as EFI, which should have been working in 2009, but is not yet up and running.

“EFI is a vital IT system that will make our debt collection much more efficient. It is unfortunate that we again have delays in a major public IT project,” Möger Pedersen says, adding he has demanded a realistic and sensible deadline for the EFI system.

Möger Pedersen expects to be able to announce a plan later this year.

As the national tax authorities are also the collecting agency for local government, councils also have large amounts owing.

Lord Mayor Frank Jensen in Copenhagen says that the capital alone has some DKK1.2bn in uncollected debts, including some DKK25m in uncollected parking fines.

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