Three men charged over nearly ISK 500m in tax offences
Monday 28th September 2026 on 23:46 in
Iceland
Three men aged 35 to 50 have been charged with extensive tax offences involving several contracting companies between 2017 and 2024, mbl.is reported. The alleged offences total nearly 488 million Icelandic krónur, including taxes linked to three companies and undeclared income by two of the men.
The prosecutor is seeking to bar all three from operating businesses. One man, who was involved in running most of the companies, faces the largest individual allegations.
The largest case concerns a contracting company operated from 2017 to 2020. The main defendant is accused of filing false tax returns and inflating operating expenses with invoices from two other contracting companies run by the co-defendants. The indictment describes 110 invoices, totalling 273.7 million krónur, as false and without basis. They allegedly allowed the company to overstate its input VAT by 100.8 million krónur.
The main defendant is also accused of failing to pay 78.9 million krónur in value-added tax and 43.9 million krónur in public levies for that company. The other two men are accused of arranging and issuing the invoices, and of assisting in the alleged offences.
After the first company went bankrupt, the main defendant was managing director and authorised signatory of another contracting company from 2021 to 2023. He is accused of avoiding 13.7 million krónur in VAT and 52 million krónur in withheld public levies. That company also went bankrupt. He then became the daily manager and authorised signatory of a third contracting company, and is accused of failing in 2024 to pay 42 million krónur in VAT and 28 million krónur in withheld public levies.
The main defendant is also accused of filing materially incorrect personal tax returns for 2018 and 2019, after withdrawing 201 million krónur from the first company without declaring it as income. Prosecutors say he thereby avoided 92.3 million krónur in income tax and municipal tax.
The oldest of the other defendants is accused of filing materially incorrect tax returns for 2017 and 2019 and failing to declare payments of 81.9 million krónur from four companies. He allegedly avoided 36.9 million krónur in tax. The case was formally brought before a district court on Monday morning.