Economic crime report 2004 - Ekobrottsmyndigheten

• Withholding taxes and social security contributions should be attributable
to the individual wage earner during the income year.
• Do not grant extended fiscal years. That makes it much too easy to
gain breathing space to commit crimes and to put goalkeepers in
place before closing the books.
• Do not permit VAT reporting on tax returns.
• Overhaul the Secrets Act to allow for information sharing between
the social insurance office and the county labour board, etc.
• Incorporate Preventive Economic Contacts (PECs) into legislation.
• PECs have been part of the crime prevention effort for a number of
years. But largely due to confusion about its legal status, such activity
has diminished recently. From a nationwide perspective, it is of
the greatest importance that the regulations be clarified and that
good crime prevention ideas and initiatives be spread throughout the
country.
• New legislation is needed to curb the steadily growing market for
undeclared labour and false invoices, perhaps the most serious economic
crime problem today. The legislation should make it possible
to demand identification of people at the workplace who are
employed in the most vulnerable contracting sectors, such as construction,
assembly and services.
• A highly desirable requirement would be that holders of restaurant
licenses keep records of those who work for them and thus facilitate
monitoring of undeclared labour in the sector.
• Legislation should be changed so as to place a greater responsibility
on businesses that use staffing companies. The responsibility would
include an obligation for the licensee to carefully check up on the
staffing company at the behest of the tax authority.
• In order to prevent welfare cheating, an employer should be required
to notify the Migration Board when hiring an asylum seeker who is
exempt from the obligation to hold a work permit.
• A number of changes to secrecy regulations are in order. A letter to
the Ministry of Justice refers to “absurdities” in this area that make
interagency cooperation to combat economic crime more difficult.
County Administrative Boards
• The Social Insurance Office is not authorized to release inspection
reports or rulings concerning welfare recipients to a county administrative
board or supervisory authority to help them decide whether a
business owner can keep his or her license to serve alcohol.
• SKV is currently neither obligated nor authorized to inform the
supervisory authority that it is auditing a restaurant owner.
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