Finnish automobile trading firms suspected of €60m tax evasion

Finnish Customs is investigating wide-scale tax fraud where used vehicles purchased to Finland as intra-community acquisitions from other EU Member States, said Finnish Customs in a press release on Thursday.

The Finnish so-called intermediate companies purchased vehicles from big European auction sites.

For their purchases, the companies have used the VAT numbers of fraudulent Bulgarian and German operators.

It has been established that more than 3 500 vehicles have been acquired and that vehicles have been purchased for a value of 115 million euros.

The total amount of tax avoided exceeds 60 million euros.

The cases involve so-called margin tax fraud, where the value-added tax on the sale is calculated on the profit from the sale of the product.

Vehicles have been purchased as intra-Community acquisitions using the VAT numbers of these operators, but no VAT has been paid on them to the country of sale.

After this, incorrect invoices including margin tax have been drafted for the Finnish companies’ bookkeeping in the name of the fraudulent operators.

This procedure has resulted in the avoidance of VAT on intra-Community acquisitions and of the open tax payable in Finland for the resale of the vehicles.

The companies have resold the vehicles mainly to one of Finland’s biggest car sales chains.

The preliminary investigation has found that persons involved in the purchasing operations of the car sales chain have been aware of the fraudulent activity relating to the vehicle imports.

Regarding the cases in question, the Finnish Tax Administration has conducted tax audits on the Finnish intermediate companies and the care sales chain.

The cases have been investigated as aggravated tax fraud and aggravated accounting offences.

Customs has carried out coercive measures against companies under investigation, for the first time already in 2024 and most recently in February 2026.

For some of the criminal matters, the charges will be considered by the Prosecution District of Western Finland and for others by the European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO).

The preliminary investigation of the criminal case is still ongoing.