Danish tax authorities are targeting crypto-currency transactions in a period from 2016 to 2018.

Danish authorities are to start checking into crypto-currency trading as an attempt to foil tax evaders.

“The Tax Agency has been authorised by the Tax Council to obtain information on trade in crypto-currency - eg bitcoins - via three Danish crypto exchanges in the period 2016 - 2018. This is the first time that the tax authority has access to this information,” the organisation said in a statement on its website yesterday. 

The agency said it has moved after getting information from the Finnish tax authorities stating that Danish citizens have traded on a Finnish bitcoin exchange.

"I think you can say that this is a big market that we need to look into. When we recently received information from the Finnish bitcoin exchange, it gave us a small tab of a larger picture, which we now have the opportunity to uncover even more of. However, how many traders it is about, or how much money has been traded, is still too early to tell about yet," Karin Bergen, personal tax director at the agency, said. 

The move is an example of how the authorities are widening their net in the war against tax evasion, forms of tax avoidance deemed unacceptable, and seeking to confiscate the proceeds of bribery, corruption and extortion.

Denmark is going through a major money laundering crisis, with Copenhagen-listed Danske Bank accused of lax controls at its Estonia branch. See the latest story here.