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TAXES

Five essential words you need when paying taxes in Denmark

The annual tax return, årsopgørelse is released on Monday so here is a reminder of Denmark’s important tax terminology.

Published: 14 October 2021 17:16 CEST
Updated: 21 February 2023 17:28 CET
The headquarters of the Danish Tax Agency in Copenhagen. A few key vocab items can help you better understand your tax return.
The headquarters of the Danish Tax Agency in Copenhagen. A few key vocab items can help you better understand your tax return. Photo: Mads Claus Rasmussen/Ritzau Scanpix

We hope our brief guide to essential Danish tax vocabulary will give you a little help.

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Self-employed and employed people alike can adjust their tax returns by logging in to the skat.dk website and entering the deductions on their preliminary tax return or annual return.

These are calculated and displayed on the website of the national tax authority, SKAT. As such, a good grasp of the necessary technical terms will help you to fill out your paperwork correctly, including things like any deductions to which you might be entitled.

Forskudsopgørelse, årsopgørelse

Forskudsopgørelse (preliminary tax return) and årsopgørelse (annual return, calculated and displayed on the SKAT website at the beginning of March) are possibly the most important Danish tax terms.

Accessing the annual tax return is a yearly event for taxpayers. Within a set deadline which falls at the beginning of May, taxpayers can edit their tax information, such as by changing income or tax exemption information.

Around three out of four taxpayers in Denmark get refunds after the yearly annual return. The amount refunded varies from person to person, but 2019 saw 3.4 million people paid an average refund of 4,700 kroner, according to official data. Many others have to pay money back to the tax authority, however.

Prior to the publication of the annual return, you can check how much tax you’ve paid or are due to pay during the course of the year and edit your income and deductions details on the preliminary version of the return, the forskudsopgørelse. 

Fradrag

A fradrag or deduction can reduce your tax bill just like in many other national tax systems. These can be entered into your tax returns, as described above.

Various types of deduction are available. These include kørselsfradrag (travel deduction) and håndværkerfradrag and servicefradrag (literally, builder’s deduction and service deduction), given for making improvements to homes or holiday homes.

Various other costs relating to work can be deducted from income tax, including kost og logi (food and accommodation); dobbelt husførelse for housing costs if living away from home temporarily due to work; and A-kasse og fagforening (unemployment insurance and trade union membership).

READ ALSO: Four ways to (legally) lower your tax bill in Denmark

AM–bidrag

AM-bidrag or arbejdsmarkedsbidrag, literally ‘labour market contribution’ is a taxation amounting to 8 percent of your wages. Grammar lovers will note use of the antonym word to fradrag.

The tax is paid directly to SKAT by your employer (for those who are not self-employed or freelance), and will be displayed on your tax returns.

If you are not self-employed or freelance, the wage slip you are issued by your employer will tell you the amount to which this 8 percent taxation is applied: some parts of your gross income are not applicable to the AM-bidrag.

Feriepenge 

Feriepenge (holiday money) is a monthly contribution paid into a special fund, depending on how much you earn.

You can claim back the money once per year, provided you actually take holiday from work.

You will be notified when the money can be paid out around May, and directed to the borger.dk website, from where you claim it back from national administrator Udbetaling Danmark.

Brutto, netto 

Your income before tax is brutto (gross), i.e. the amount prior to calculation and payment of tax and application of deductions. Netto is not usually a supermarket when talking about tax, but is the amount you receive after paying all levies.

EXPLAINED: How to understand your Danish payslip

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For members

WORKING IN DENMARK

‘I can only say ‘tak’: What you need to get a job at a high-end restaurant in Denmark

The Local asked readers working at high-end restaurants in Denmark for their best tips on getting jobs or internships. This is what they said.

Published: 29 May 2024 15:32 CEST
'I can only say 'tak': What you need to get a job at a high-end restaurant in Denmark

There’s been quite a few recent articles, both in Danish newspapers such as Politiken and in international newspapers like the Financial Times, that have highlighted the darker aspects of the restaurant scene in Copenhagen, with excessive use of unpaid interns, borderline inhumane working hours, and reports of workplace abuse. 

But the truth is, this characterises top-level restaurants the world over, and want-to-be chefs and front-of-house staff still stream to Copenhagen looking to get an illustrious name on their CV. 

So what do you need? 

First things first, speaking Danish, particularly if you work in the kitchen, is not at all necessary. 

“There’s no Danish needed,” said an American who had worked at Noma, one of the three restaurants in Copenhagen with three Michelin stars. “90 percent of people there are not Danish. Some people have been there over 10 years and don’t speak it.”

“You absolutely don’t need Danish,” agreed Antoine, a French respondent. “I’m working in a Michelin and the only thing I can say is ‘tak’.” 

It’s not even always necessary if you’re working as a waiter or sommelier. 

“The front-of-house language is English and/or Danish, at least in Copenhagen,” said Max, who works as a restaurant manager at a top-end hotel. “If you have extra languages that’s a big bonus.”

What you might need is specialist kitchen terminology in English, although as you also need some experience, you will probably have picked that up on the way. 

“Do you need Danish? No, but you need to know the kitchen lingo,” said Dominik from Poland, who works for a supplier to the food industry. 

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What is necessary is experience. If you’ve never set foot in a kitchen or worked tables ever before, you’re unlikely to get a try-out at a Michelin star restaurant in Denmark, even as an unpaid intern. 

“What sort of experence you need depends on what role you are aiming for: front of house will have different expectations compared to the kitchen,” Dominik said. “To get your foot through the door, you need experience and references.” 

The main restaurants encourage applicants to get in touch over email, with people seeking work at Geranium encouraged to send applications to Alessandra Andrioli at [email protected]. Jordnær, the latest addition to the three-star club, has no information on application, but its email is [email protected]. 

Noma, the most famous of the three, has a careers page here, which currently has no jobs on offer. 

Very often though, hiring even at Denmark’s top-end restaurants can be informal, with news on job vacancies shared word of mouth, or on in posts on Instagram or other social media, and jobs filled through personal recommendations, or even simply given to the person who happens to turn up and ask at the right time. 

“To get in as an intern, you just need to be young, and have a background in cooking, ideally at a high-end kind of place,” said the American respondent who had previously worked at Noma.

“Some just show up and ask if they can volunteer, and quite a few get internship positions. Especially if the place is very low on labour. Young chefs would just show up, ask to give their CV in person and if the timing was right, get a position.” 

A Nepalese chef with experience in London, Paris, and Dubai, said he had been given an hour-long interview and then “four hours of unpaid trials starting from cutting tomatoes and going up to plating dishes”, before being offered a position at just 130 kroner an hour. His main tip for getting a job was simply to accept the low wage offered and not try to negotiate anything higher. 

Max also recommended “going to the restaurant itself and asking to speak to the manager”, although he said this worked best at “smaller restaurants and non-chains”. 

“Hospitality is still old school in many places. I get too many CVs which don’t tell me much. Many times I hire purely based on the person’s character and attitude and train the skills I need. Sending a copy/paste email doesnt really cut it for good quality places.” 

Laura, from France, a former head waiter at a Michelin restaurant in Copenhagen, said that networking was a good way into a job, recommending that those seeking a position regularly attend events like cocktail-making competitions, other industry nights, and hang out in bars frequented by restaurant personnel. 

Events like the Mad Symposium or the Copenhagen Cooking and Food festival might be worth a visit. 

Max argued that to get a job at a high-end restaurant in Copenhagen, waiters needed at the minimum a “basic understanding of wine, spirits, barista, mixology skills,” as well as “basic stock/inventory control”.

He said that if they could add to that specialist expertise in either working as a waiter, sommelier, barista, or mixologist this would make it “much easier”. 

For chefs and waiting staff who want to move to Copenhagen from elsewhere, he suggested getting a job in a major hotel chain in their own country, and then transferring to one of their hotels in Denmark. Once you have some experience in a Danish hotel, it will then be easier to move to an independent restaurant. 

So is it worth it? 

“It’s hard work but definitely much easier than in France, Italy or Spain, for exemple,” Laura argued. “Overall fair pay, but it widely differs from one restaurant to another.” 

Others were less positive. 

“Be ready for 14 hour shifts in an extremely competitive and more often that not toxic environment,” Dominik warned. 

Have you worked at a top-end restaurant in Denmark? Please tell us about it by filling in the form at this link (or below) and we’ll add you comments to this article. 

 

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