A new Danish customs control system that cost 1.2 billion kroner is finding only about half as many errors and violations as the system it replaces, according to a document sent to parliament.
As DR reports, Tax Minister Jakob Engel-Schmidt of the Moderates has submitted the document to the Folketing’s Finance Committee. It was sent now that the system has been declared fully developed, after 13 years of work by the Danish tax authorities.
The document states that the system was tested for a little over two years, from May 2024 to June 2026. The measured hit rate, meaning the share of selected cases that led to findings, is 15 percent. The baseline measurement for the old system was 28 to 29 percent.
In other words, nearly one in three checks in the old system produced a result. So far, that applies to roughly one in seven checks in the new system. The minister writes that the gain has not yet been realized, because there are challenges with supplying control data.
Customs agency points to data problems
Engel-Schmidt was not available to comment, according to DR. The Ministry of Taxation instead referred questions to Toldstyrelsen, the Danish Customs Agency, which confirmed in writing that there have been difficulties feeding data into the system.
The agency stated that it is working continuously to improve this, and that the hit rate will rise as a result. Per Toldstyrelsen, goods are selected for inspection based on risk and materiality, and the hit rate is one of several parameters used.
Thomas Hildebrandt, a professor of IT at the University of Copenhagen, told DR that the result can hardly be called a success. As he noted, the hit rate is the only goal besides complying with EU rules. He said it could sound as if expectations for data quality and automatic selection models had been too optimistic.
Years of delay and criticism
The project dates back to 2013, when the EU decided on uniform customs rules through the Union Customs Code. The deadline for putting the system into operation was the end of 2022, and Denmark received dispensation until the end of 2023. New control systems were only running by mid-2025, according to the document.
Statsrevisorerne, the parliamentary auditors, criticized weak IT support and insufficient use of data in customs controls back in 2017. Following a report from Rigsrevisionen, they called it very unsatisfactory that the tax administration’s control level was the lowest in the EU. Rigsrevisionen still monitors the part of the project dealing with the selection of controls.
Targets have also been changed along the way. In 2024, Statens It-Råd recommended simplifying the expected gains from the project. The Ministry of Taxation now expects to return to the Finance Committee with a new status in the first half of 2027.
