14 ANNUAL REPORT 2017 NEW SCOPE FOR GENERAL INVESTIGATIONS It is not a new thing that the Ombudsman can process tax cases. The Ombudsman could also do so before 1 January 2017. But with increased resources in an actual Taxation Division the Ombudsman’s capacity within this sector has been significantly strengthened. The increase in capacity improves the scope for processing complaints from private citizens or companies. When we process complaint cases our focus is not entirely on assisting the individual citizen but also on detecting problems of importance beyond the individual case. Thus, the specific complaint cases can provide a good entry to discovering other systemic errors. T H E OM B U DSM A N ’ S TA X AT I O N D I V I S I O N – The Taxation Division is one of six legal divisions at the Ombudsman institution. – The Taxation Division consists of 11 legal case officers. – The Taxation Division is charged with keeping an eye on whether the Danish Customs and Tax Administration and other tax authorities respect the laws and principles of good administration. – Like the Ombudsman’s other legal divisions, the Taxation Division considers complaints, opens cases on the Taxation Division’s own initiative and can carry out larger investigations with focus on more general issues. – Continuous reporting of the Division’s work is a central task to the Taxation Division – as a kind of learning for the tax authorities and other interested parties. But in our opinion, the most efficient tool for detecting and solving systemic errors is own-initiative investigations – especially the above-mentioned general own-initiative investigations. In the general investigations, specific problems are raised to a higher level, for example when the Ombudsman asks the authority to explain how the authority normally handles similar issues and thereby state the authority’s practice within this field. This makes it easier to detect whether we are dealing with an isolated error or a systemic error. This investigation method has great impact on the authorities’ case processing in general. Furthermore, such an investigation may to a high degree result in a forward-looking focus by pointing out solutions and providing guidance to the authority on how to put it right. The aim of the Taxation Division is not to express as much criticism of the authorities as possible but on the contrary to constructively influence the authorities to become better. At the core of this work lies also that we find it very important to maintain a respectful relationship with the authorities we monitor.