Whether confiscation of proceeds from a criminal act should be reduced by imposed surtax
Supreme Court judgment 26 June 2020, HR-2020-1354-A, (case no. 20-040133STR-HRET), criminal case, appeal against judgment.
A (Counsel Anette Fjeld) v. The Public Prosecution Authority (Counsel Anders Mandal Funnemark)
Justices: Møse, Noer, Bull, Arntzen, Steinsvik
A taxpayer who had made unlawful withdrawals from two companies of which he had been general manager and chairman, was levied with tax and surtax for the increased income the withdrawals generated when the tax authorities learned about the acts. In the criminal case regarding the same acts, the Court of Appeal stipulated a confiscation amount based on the values he had transferred to himself, with deduction for the imposed tax, see section 67 subsection 3 of the Penal Code. The Supreme Court found that a similar deduction was not to be made for the surtax. References were made to statements in preparatory works and to the fact that surtax is of a penal character and is fundamentally distinguished from ordinary tax in a confiscation perspective.