Learning something about Danish taxes from Danes Worldwide. And continuing my exercise program.

Being back in Aarhus I restarted my exercise program. I have been swimming again and been to the gym working out with weights. I swim now at the Aarhus swim stadium, where they have real lanes and recently they set it up as a 50 meter Olympic pool. Its amazing facilities. It is not at all cold as I thought it would be. I have started including more walking/running in my exercise. On my Apple Watch only walking and running is measured for the Vo2 max — the condition number which I want to improve. At the hospital in a rehabilitation program I went for three months I improved from very poor to poor. Now I am just happy getting into the normal bracket for my age group.

The other day I took part in a Zoom event organized by Danes Worldwide about taxes for Danes moving back to Denmark. I am trying to learn more about what I have to do when filing my tax return. I became a member of Danes Worldwide at the beginning of the year as I am hoping to get some info from participating in their events and afterwards share my own experiences. I also called the Danish tax authorities myself this week, and I have done that a couple of times. They are very helpful. The date for my return is from 20 April last year when I flew into Denmark and ended up staying. I am determined to work out as much as I can myself and this way I understand it better from now on. After I have completed this process, it should also be more straightforward.

It was not too difficult for me to get out of the Danish tax system, which I did a bit as an afterthought and I then became a resident of the Dominican Republic. In Denmark, as I see it, you are either completely in or out. If you are not in the Danish system, with registered address in Denmark and living there you don’t receive any public services either and you can’t vote at any election in Denmark for instance. Also, the Danish foreign office is not obliged to help you. For a short time I was helping them out with a situation with some Danes in Haiti and the Dominican Republic and they clearly told me it was only the Danes visiting as tourists who they were helping. That was fair enough. In hindsight being a member of Danes Worldwide would have been a good idea while I was living abroad.