danish taxes, no like

After I got the bad news about my Danish tax declaration I was really bummed out. It said I had to pay 9 500 DKK since I had paid too little tax throughout the year. Which I totally did not understand since I had declared my yearly salary and for sure did not earn more than that since I stopped working and left the country. But somehow they have a system that I still do not understand at all, they apparently do some recalculations to get a new yearly income of what I earned during the months I was actually registered in Denmark. In the end that yearly income was a lot higher than my actual total salary during 2009. It is just strange.

I asked several Danish people to have a look at it to see if it was correct, a Danish man at mom's job looked through my papers and did calculations and came up that it all seemed correct. Damn. With one last effort I called Skat, the Danish tax authorities, to make them explain why they calculated the way they did. I eventually got hold of a man that talked English and actually could explain it a little (although I still do not understand the system). He suggested me to send in some papers stating that I wanted them to use my actual yearly salary and not the calculated one, and another paper stating that I did not have an income when I came back to Sweden. So I did.

That was last week and I have been waiting to get a new tax statement online and the other day it had appeared. I was really hoping that the amount to be paid had been lowered, the man I talked to thought that I should be able to get it lowered if I send in those papers which I did.

I check out the new tax statement and see that now the number is only 6 900 DKK instead of 9 500 DKK, and I feel good that it got lowered at least a bit. Then I see the text in front of those numbers and I realize that it is actually 6 900 DKK that will be paid out. It is not the amount that I will have to pay, I will get that amount back. I was truly happy, this was what I was hoping in the first place, to get money back.

It is all just so strange. It is a difference of almost 17 000 DKK just because I demanded them to use my actual yearly income instead of the calculated one. And I do not understand at all that I had to send in proof that I had no income here in Sweden. What if I had worked? If it was so I would have paid taxes on that in Sweden and why should I then have to suffer for that in Denmark?

Anyway. I am happy. I will get money back and do not have to worry about paying them.