Icelandic band Sigur Ros have called on their country’s government to review what they describe as “unjust and draconian” tax laws, which they say have left them on “the brink of financial ruin” ahead of their forthcoming court case for tax evasion.
Accounting errors by the band’s financial advisors, including what is described as “one of the world’s biggest accounting firms”, left them owing hundreds of millions of Icelandic kronur in taxes for the period 2011-2014.
They were then charged with tax evasion by the country’s directorate of Internal Revenue (The RSK), an allegation they strongly deny.
Following a full investigation by The SRS [Directorate of Tax Investigations] the band fully cooperated with The RSK and agreed with both their findings and the subsequent ruling that they should pay back all outstanding historical taxes and fines which amounted to 150% of the original bill.
This in turn led to each of the individual band member’s assets, reportedly valued at well in excess of the value of the outstanding taxes and fines, being frozen indefinitely.
In addition to this agreement with The RSK, they were subsequently pursued separately by the Icelandic District Attorney for further fines and sentencing relating to the same period, a move that the band felt was an unjustified double jeopardy prosecution.
In 2018 the District Court in Iceland dismissed the action, ruling that the decision by the country’s tax authorities to investigate and prosecute the band twice was without merit.
However, the country’s High Court subsequently opted to uphold the original prosecution.
No court date has yet been set.
“We have become victims of an unjust and draconian prosecution by the Icelandic government who are unfairly seeking to portray us as deliberate tax evaders, something we have always and continue to strongly deny.”
Sigur Ros
“Since we discovered that our financial advisors had seriously misled us over our tax liabilities for the period 2011-2014 we have trusted in the judicial process, which we truly believed would exonerate us of any wilful wrongdoing,” explained the band’s four members Kjartan Sveinsson, Jonsi Birgisson, Georg Holm and Orri Dyrason in a joint statement.
“We have always provided our full cooperation to all investigations and reached an agreement with the Icelandic tax authorities to pay what we owed plus interest and fines.
“However, in the intervening years we have become victims of an unjust and draconian prosecution by the Icelandic government who are unfairly seeking to portray us as deliberate tax evaders, something we have always and continue to strongly deny.”
The Icelandic government recently took the decision to pause its pursuit of so called ‘double jeopardy’ prosecutions, with a view to amending the legislation, in light of concerns raised about the fairness and legality of the practise.
Over 100 cases, including that of Sigur Ros, remain open and are still being pursued through the courts.
Three similar cases have been taken before the European Court of Human Rights in recent years, ending with a judgement in favour of the plaintiffs.
All three of these appeals were upheld, but the Icelandic courts have chosen to ignore all of these rulings to date.
You can read the joint statement from the four members in full below:
Since we discovered that our financial advisors had seriously misled us over our tax liabilities for the period 2011-2014 we have trusted in the judicial process, which we truly believed would exonerate us of any wilful wrongdoing.
We have always provided our full cooperation to all investigations and reached an agreement with the Icelandic tax authorities to pay what we owed plus interest and fines.
However, in the intervening years we have become victims of an unjust and draconian prosecution by the Icelandic government who are unfairly seeking to portray us as deliberate tax evaders, something we have always and continue to strongly deny.
We have been charged and tried twice for the same offence, our assets have been frozen for years now, we are facing potential financial ruin and as such we are calling on the Icelandic government to revoke these outdated double jeopardy tax laws, which have affected numerous Icelandic businesses.
The Icelandic government has now paused any further prosecutions as a result of these concerns but is still actively pursuing over 100 open cases, which is contradictory and makes no sense at all. We want to shine a light on systemic failures rather than individuals.
We know that the legislation is broken and that the courts have their hands tied at present. This needs to be urgently addressed.
We are fortunate to have a platform in order to speak out about this and we do so not just for ourselves but for the many others who have been caught up in this shameful failure of the Icelandic legal system, which does nothing but embarrass our country.
Music Business Worldwide
