When a good question resolves the case | 21 This happened in, among others, a case (Case No. 14/03892) where a journalist had asked the Fund for Better Working Environment and Labour Retention for access to files exchanged between the Fund and the Ministry of Employment. The Fund had denied access to the files with reference to the so-called rule on ministerial advice and assistance. But in order to be able to invoke this rule, there has to be a so-called superior/subordinate relationship between the ministry and the authority. The Fund for Better Working Environment and Labour Retention was then an independent body, and the rule on ministerial advice and assistance could therefore not be used. We set this out clearly when asking the Fund for a statement and wrote that if the Fund wished to reopen the case on that basis, it could just phone us up and tell us. The Fund did so, and we therefore withdrew our request for a statement and closed the case. Later, the Fund announced that the journalist had been granted full access to the files. In other cases, our contribution is to draw the authorities’ attention to a particular legal basis. This was for instance the case when a housing association was registered incorrectly in the IT systems of the Danish Customs and Tax Administration (SKAT) (Case No. 17/05126). The incorrect registration meant that the housing association could not get the reduction of the public land value and therefore the tax reduction that the association was otherwise entitled to. The tax authorities did not believe that they could reopen the case within the framework of the law. When asking the tax authorities for statements, we pointed out how the problem in the case could potentially be solved: A statutory provision allowed SKAT to correct an error on SKAT’s own initiative, even though the possibil- ities of reopening the case had otherwise been exhausted. We asked the tax authorities specifically what factors they had taken into conside­ ration regarding the provision in question. Subsequently, SKAT reviewed the case again and announced that the erroneous registration would be corrected so that the housing association would be able to claim its tax reduction. Sometimes, there is no doubt that the authorities have decided a case on a correct legal basis – but it is still our immediate opinion that the authorities have not come to the correct conclusion. The Tax Appeals Agency had, for instance, refused a lawyer’s request for advance assurance that the Agency would reopen an appeal case. In other words, the Tax Appeals Agency would not promise to look into the case again even in the event that the lawyer succeeded in a similar case which was already being tried before the courts. The Tax Appeals Agency had based its refusal on the grounds that the appeal case did not concern the same legal issues as did the case before the courts. We were puzzled by these grounds, as both cases were part of the same case set and directly concerned with the same issue. When we asked for an initial statement, we therefore asked why the case before the courts did not concern the same issue as the appeal case. The Tax Appeals Agency subsequently changed its opinion so that an advance assurance to reopen the case was given after all. The lawyer then withdrew the complaint to us and we closed the case (Case No. 18/00407).