Iceland PM insists money belongs to wife
REYKJAVIK // Iceland’s prime minister yesterday refused to resign despite calls to do so after leaked tax documents showed he and his wife used an offshore firm to allegedly hide million-dollar investments.
“I have not considered quitting because of this matter, nor am I going to quit because of this matter,” said prime minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson.
According to the leaked Panama Papers, Mr Gunnlaugsson and his wife, Anna Sigurlaug Palsdottir, purchased the offshore company Wintris in the British Virgin Islands in December 2007. The reports have prompted calls for a no- confidence vote in parliament against him.
He transferred his 50 per cent stake to her in 2009 for the sym- bolic sum of US$1 (Dh3.67) on December 31, 2009 – the day before a new Icelandic law took effect that would have required him to declare the ownership of Wintris as a conflict of interest.
He insisted he had never hid any money abroad, and said his wife, who inherited a fortune from her father, had paid all her taxes in Iceland.
“She has neither utilised tax havens nor can you say that her company is an offshore company in the sense that it pays taxes abroad rather than in Iceland,” Mr Gunnlaugsson said on his website.
Whether or not he is guilty of tax evasion remains to be proven, but his opponents have insisted he step down regardless.
“The prime minister should immediately resign,” said former Social Democratic prime minis- ter Johanna Sigurdardottir.
Nearly 25,000 Icelanders have signed a petition demanding he resign, while the opposition said it would seek a vote of no confidence in parliament, likely this week.
Published reports about Mr Gunnlaugsson’s financial matters have brought quick condemnation from prominent Icelandic politicians. Former prime minister Johanna Sigurdardottir called for his resignation, as did Birgitta Jonsdottir, head of the Pirate Party.
“Information on the involvement of current ministers in companies in tax havens was hidden from the Icelandic people before the last elections, and it is only right that they get to appraise the situation again,” said Arni Pall Arnason, leader of the Social Democratic Alliance.
Wintris lost money in the 2008 financial crash that crippled Iceland, and is claiming a total of 515 million Icelandic kronur (Dh15.4m) from the three failed Icelandic banks: Landsbanki, Glitnir, and Kaupthing. Mr Gunnlaugsson has been accused of a serious conflict of interest as he was involved as prime minister in reaching a deal for the banks’ claimants.
As leader of the centre- right Progressive Party, he began a four-year term in 2013, five years after Iceland’s financial collapse.
The country went from economic superstar to financial basket case almost overnight when its main commercial banks collapsed within a week of one another in 2008.