Following the amendment of the Danish Pension Tax Act (Pensionsbeskatningsloven (PBL)) (Act no. 1534 of 19 December 2007), it became possible to obtain approval of pension schemes offered by foreign banks and pension providers in countries outside the EU/EEA as tax-privileged in Denmark.

In order to be covered by the tax privilege, the foreign pension scheme must fulfil the same conditions as set out in Part 1 of PBL which apply to Danish pension schemes, and the bank or pension provider must agree to fulfil the same obligations as those applying to Danish banks and pension providers. If these conditions are fulfilled, the pension scheme can be approved and must subsequently, for tax purposes, be treated in the same way as a corresponding Danish pension scheme.

This means that there are:

• tax exemptions or deductions for the contributions against the taxable income,
• possibility of tax-exempt transfers to similar pension schemes,
• taxation of yields and
• income taxation or payment of tax on the termination of a pension plan.

Under the Danish Pension Investment Return Tax Act (Pensionsafkastbeskatningsloven (PAL)), yields from pension plan assets from approved foreign pension plans are taxed like yields from Danish pension plans.

One condition for the tax privilege of foreign pension plans is that SKAT receives information from the foreign banks and pension providers:

• on the foreign pension plans and
• that the bank or pension provider offers SKAT the assistance with the collection of tax etc. deemed necessary in order to be able to effect the taxation

pursuant to PBL and PAL and which corresponds to the rules applying to the Danish banks and pension providers.

The guide provides an overview of the obligations and how the foreign banks and pension providers can comply with these by means of forms, TastSelv (Self-Key) etc.