Summaries of selected statements | 79 In August 2015, all claims for refunds of dividend tax were put on hold because of suspected extensive fraud with such claims. The Ombudsman’s investigation did not include aspects in relation to the suspected fraud or SKAT’s initiatives in this connection. 2018-30. Panama Papers – requests by Danish Customs and Tax Administration for information from citizens and assessment of suspicion under Act on Due Process in Connection with the Public Administration’s Use of Compulsory Intervention and Duties of Disclosure Information from the so-called Panama Papers caused the Danish Customs and Tax Administration (SKAT) to send requests for material to a number of citizens. In these requests, SKAT stated that the citizens were required to send in information in order that it could be established whether they owed tax to Denmark. After being contacted by the Tax Committee of the Council for the Danish Bar and Law Society, the Ombudsman decided to open an investigation on his own initiative of whether SKAT had complied with the rules in section 10 of the Act on Due Process in Connection with the Public Administration’s Use of Compulsory Intervention and Duties of Disclosure on the privilege against self-incrimination. Under section 10 of the Act, a citizen is as a general rule not required to provide information to authorities if there is a specific suspicion that he or she has committed a criminal offence. The Ombudsman stated that the requirement under section 1(1) of the Tax Control Act for citizens to account for the basis for information which they have reported in their tax returns was to be regarded as a duty of disclosure, which was subject to section 10 of the Act on Due Process in Connection with the Public Administration’s Use of Compulsory Intervention and Duties of Disclosure. The Ombudsman’s investigation did not give him grounds to assume that there was generally a basis for specific suspicion, at the time at which the requests for material were sent out, against the citizens who were ordered to provide information. The Ombudsman therefore concluded that the rules on the privilege against self-incrimination had been observed. The Ombudsman’s assessment was based on SKAT’s general description of the information available at the time and of the procedure followed in the cases, as he had not looked into the individual cases about SKAT’s requests for information. In addition, the Ombudsman’s investigation gave him no grounds for assuming that SKAT generally lacked a legitimate basis for asking the citizens for information concerning income years for which the ordinary deadline for assessment had expired. The Ombudsman agreed with SKAT that an alteration should be made of the wording of the declaration of consent which SKAT had previously asked citizens who were under specific suspicion of committing a criminal offence to sign in cases where they wished to give their consent to provide information. Prime Minister’s Office The following statements on cases concluded in 2018 have been published: 2018-5. Ministry could not refuse access to material on the grounds that it would shortly be made publicly available The Prime Minister’s Office partially refused a request from a journalist for access to correspondence be­tween the Permanent Secretaries of the Prime Minister’s Office and the Ministry of Immigration and Integration about the case of the then Ministry of Immigration, Integration and Housing issuing an instruction in February 2016 that no asylum seekers under 18 years of age were to be permitted to be accommodated in Danish asylum centres together with a spouse or cohabitee.