Today’s big topic: »That’s a lot of money that people with those kinds of salaries get from the middle-tax cut«

Foto: Jens Dresling

What’s happening?

Most Danes will be able to feel in their finances that a new government has taken office. Many will gradually see a difference in everything from the dentist’s bill to supermarket prices and the figures on their tax statement.

You could be forgiven for thinking, based on Tuesday’s presentation, that the entire government platform points toward greater equality.

But that is not the case. While some measures benefit everyone and matter most to people on low incomes, other – and very significant – measures benefit only high earners. Some may have expected the government to eliminate the interest deduction for people with large interest expenses, who are typically also those with higher incomes. And the inheritance tax.

Things will get cheaper for everyone when the government removes the VAT on fruits and vegetables and halves the VAT on all other food. For a family with two adults and two children, that could mean savings of about 12,000 DKK a year, according to figures from PFA.

Those savings will matter most for the Danes who earn the least, because food takes up a larger share of their overall budget. By contrast, the government’s tax cuts primarily benefit people earning well above the average. The government wants to abolish the middle tax bracket, which you pay if you earn more than 641,000 DKK a year after labor-market contributions.

Why it matters!

People earning 800,000 DKK a year would thus be able to save a bit more than 10,000 DKK annually. If both adults in the aforementioned family have salaries that high, the family would save more than 20,000 DKK in taxes each year – on top of the savings from the lower VAT on food.

In the more technical category is the government’s decision to freeze the current tax thresholds for two years. Deductions normally rise with wage growth and inflation, but for those two years they will not be increased.

If the personal allowance does not rise, the vast majority will end up paying almost 500 DKK more in taxes each year after the two years than they otherwise would have, according to figures from Danske Bank.

Still curious? Read the full article here.

In other news

– Comic start to massive fraud trial: Authorities had forgotten two of the main players

It began on a somewhat comic note: As Judge Morten Juul Nielsen was ready to get the case under way Tuesday morning, prosecutor Anders Møllmann had to point out that two of the defendants were not in the courtroom at all. No one had thought to bring Rajen Shah and Anupe Dhorajiwala up from the cells where they had been placed while waiting for the next major case in the complex dividend-tax fraud proceedings to begin. Then it turned serious. Along with the so-called masterminds, Matthew Stein and Jerome Lhôte, they are charged with aggravated fraud for having – the prosecutor alleges – conned their way to a dazzling fortune by misleading Denmark’s tax authority, Skat. All four deny the charges and say the court should acquit them when the verdict is scheduled, as planned, for June 2027. The Americans, Stein and Lhôte, are charged with having sent 284 applications for dividend-tax refunds to Skat and collecting more than 1.1 billion kroner in return. Prosecutors say Shah and Dhorajiwala took part in 71 of those applications, which pulled 306 million kroner out of the Danish state’s coffers through Skat.

The trial is scheduled to unfold over a total of 52 court sessions and to end with a verdict in June 2027. It was supposed to be the last Danish criminal case involving dividend-tax fraud, but it will not be. Two were missing from the dock Tuesday. Not the two everyone had forgotten in their cells, but another American mastermind, Luke McGee, and a British aide based in Dubai, Graham Horn.

– Lego sues artist

The tiny Lego figures are swarming into view. As police officers in Nyhavn, as AGF fans in Aarhus, as a queen with a cigarette clenched in her mouth and as superheroes in front of a dystopian Times Square in New York. It is all unfolding in paintings by the Danish artist Artpusher, who makes liberal use of recognizable symbols and figures in his work. And for Lego, it has become too much. The toy company has sued Artpusher and is demanding that he no longer use Lego minifigures in his works and that existing depictions be destroyed. According to Lego, this amounts to »commercial exploitation and free-riding« on the company’s products, in violation of copyright law. Artpusher says he has previously been in dialogue with Lego and offered to remove some of the works. But the parties have not been able to reach an agreement.

– Despite criminal case, Rejsekort and DSB push ahead with controversial ads for their apps

Despite more than six months of criticism of a controversial advertising campaign for Rejsekort’s and DSB’s apps – without equally clear information about an analog alternative, the Basiskort – the campaign continues unabated. Politiken has been investigating the affair since the fall. The campaign gathered momentum in September 2025, and, as previously reported, in December the Consumer Ombudsman opened a case against Rejsekort for misleading marketing in violation of the law. More than 35 consumers have complained about the campaign. But because Rejsekort and the public transport companies behind the campaign, which own Rejsekort, are disputing the authority’s ruling, the Consumer Ombudsman has moved to file a police report.

»The marketing campaign from Rejsekort & Rejseplan is, in our assessment, a clear example of misleading consumers. You provide some information but omit other material information – in order to influence a specific behavior by the consumer, in this case switching to an app instead of a physical travel card. As a result, consumers could not make their choice on a sufficiently informed basis«, the Consumer Ombudsman, Torben Jensen, said in a press release.

Talk of town: We’re getting a new strange government

Foto: Mads Nissen

We had a strange government, we had a strange election campaign, and now we’re getting a new, strange government.

Where the SVM government was born in the spirit of broken promises – with Venstre (V) and Moderaterne (M) having to eat humble pie at Marienborg and drop the demand for a new legal inquiry into the mink scandal before they climbed into the ministerial cars – the S-SF-M-R government is born of a very different realization. Namely, that after a miserable election Socialdemokratiet (S) would not once again steer toward a broad centrist government, but that they could move forward with their old friends, Socialistisk Folkeparti (SF) and Radikale (RV), only if it happened in understanding with Lars Løkke Rasmussen’s Moderaterne (M).

And therefore, too, a realization that Lars Løkke would only turn toward a center-left government the moment it became crystal clear that his centrist project was stone-dead.

The two eternal figures of Danish politics, who first battled each other for years and have now become each other’s political preconditions. Now the two of them are leading a government that was the only attainable outcome after an election in which the old parties hit the wall and the room to maneuver was, in reality, limited. There was no red majority, there was no blue majority, and so we are getting a government that belongs to a bloc but also reaches across the center.

The government is put together in a way that is, quite simply, built on give-and-take, with a fairly open acknowledgment that they do not agree on everything. Nor did they pretend to during the process of forming the government. There have been tough battles, but along the way alliances have also been built among politicians who did not know one another very well. Everyone had to get something, no one could be squeezed out, because every mandate mattered. If one party walked, the whole project would collapse.

Read the full article here.

Guide: Now Distortion is heading back to the streets. Here are the parties

The all-consuming festival beast Distortion is taking over Copenhagen – to some people’s dread, but to many others’ delight. We’ve got you – and here we guide you through a bit of everything that’s free, while you can sort out the Distortion X parties behind fences, the nightclub events, and the weekend’s big, gated Distortion Ø festival on Refshaleøen.

Wednesday

• Believe it or not, the city’s probably rowdiest week opens with an artistic “opening ceremony” at Kongens Nytorv on Wednesday, June 3. It comes in the form of a special collaborative concert, with different musicians performing in rotation on small stages scattered around the square. And these are talented Copenhagen acts across a range of styles: a choir led by the dream-pop musician Clarissa Conelly, the post-club trio Wedding, and global electronic club music from Muskila. »Orchestrated chaos«, as the festival itself puts it. Free admission. Read more here.

Thursday

This year, it’s Vesterbro’s turn on Thursday, June 4. The music starts at 4 p.m. and ends again at 10 p.m. — sharp, no less.

Here are a few highlights from the massive program for your tour de force.

• It’s called Smackdown when Bodyslam invites you to open-air wrestling at Enghavevej 61. Four hours of sweaty grappling followed by a dance floor around the ring. Read more here.

• Things get hard-hitting, too, when Halmtorvet hosts an “all-female lineup,” with women like Harty, Ena Cosovic, and Selma behind the decks. Read more here

• The city’s disco-ball kings are showing up at Distortion, too — the party crew from Bar Funk, which just won Ibyen’s Prize for Party of the Year. This Thursday, it’s Litauens Plads that gets turned into a funk temple, and it’s guaranteed to be packed. Read more here.

Friday

On Friday, June 5, there are waterfront parties with harbor views, as 15 wildly different free events take place in Copenhagen Harbor.

• For instance, there’s a promise of »pure Afro energy« when Sort Distortion ignites a block party with DJs and dancers by Refshaleøen/Sønderhoved. Read more here.

• If you want it a bit more bougie, you can party with Soho House (yes, even without a membership) and Søpavillonen’s nightclub Natten at Havnegade 44, in the company of the South African »afrohouse sensation« Shimza. Read more here

On Friday and Saturday, Distortion Ø takes place on Refshaleøen. See the day-by-day schedules for the ticketed festival by clicking here.

This newsletter features stories originally published in Danish. AI was used to shorten and translate the articles into English, after which a member of the editorial staff reviewed and refined the content.