Waselius successfully represented the defendant in the Supreme Court in a criminal case concerning so-called passive tax fraud.
For several years, the defendant had received capital income from her investment account located in a foreign bank, information about which was not included in the pre-completed tax returns, and the defendant had not returned the pre-completed tax returns. The defendant had since paid the avoided taxes with interest, but the financial benefit was so significant that the prosecutor demanded that the defendant be punished for aggravated tax fraud. The Supreme Court considered that the charge had to be dismissed, as the defendant presented a plausible explanation for the failure to declare the capital income received from abroad and, thus, there was a reasonable doubt that the defendant had acted intentionally for the purpose of avoiding tax.
The precedent is significant, as the purpose of tax avoidance has been interpreted relatively strictly in previous jurisprudence.
To read the precedent (in Finnish) in its entirety, please see: KKO:2024:34