I don't understand how buying stolen property is suddenly not illegal, when it is the tax authorities doing it. But there are almost no limits to what the tax authorities can get away with in Denmark.<p>This is the press release from the Danish tax authorities, confirming the purchase: <a href="http://www.skat.dk/SKAT.aspx?oId=2234275&vId=0" rel="nofollow">http://www.skat.dk/SKAT.aspx?oId=2234275&vId=0</a>
Am I the only one who got the impression that this is strange!?<p>Why do the journalists don't share the data with the governments for free? Establishing trust that the government is serious and real should be possible for them.<p>Could the anonymous source just be a journalist who wants to profit of the data?<p>I'm all for fighting tax avoidance but considering that most of the EU member states have an interest in the data this could be quite a sum of cash that is someone obtaining from an illegal hack. It's also not clear who benefits here. It's pretty shady isn't it? Even it's legal.
I live in Denmark, so this is being bought with my tax money, and I see no problem with this. I'm sure that most of the money there is legal and was correctly taxed where applicable but it's good that the few who might stealing from the rest of us get potentially brought to justice.
The Baltic states' tax authorities are to do the same. Heard a debate on the radio few days ago, with the host asking "is this even legal" and the chief of the tax authority responded: "and is this legal to evade taxes?"
How will a court view the way in which this evidence was obtained? And what about the veracity? Surely anyone who appears in the purchased data will say that it is unreliable.
They might try to use the information to see if they can get some of the €800.000.000 back lost:<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/aug/27/denmark-fears-it-has-been-victim-of-biggest-ever-800m-tax" rel="nofollow">https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/aug/27/denmark-fea...</a>