Sigur Rós has been a famous Icelandic post-rock band since 1994. The group has completed 7 albums and been nominated for 9 awards. One of Iceland’s biggest musical groups, Sigur Rós has yet again been charged with new counts of tax evasion. According to Pitchfork, the entire band is accused of allegedly evading around 151 million Icelandic Krona or $1.2 million U.S. dollars. Jónsi Birgisson, Georg Holm, Kjartan Sveinsson, and Orri PallDyrasonwere were all accused of tax evasion last year but were cleared of the accusations. Last year, the band had 800 million Icelandic Krona ($8 million) of their assets frozen by the government, but all charges were dropped due to the claim that their accountant made a mistake.
The local government rather than the Icelandic government are currently pursuing the tax charges against the band. Bjarnfredur Olafsson who works with LOGOS Legal Services claims that the band is not an expert on their book-keeping and that they hired internationally regarded people to take care of their taxes for them. He explains that the band just made a mistake and that it’s sad that the prosecutor has chosen to indict them. Sigur Rós made a claim stating that they did not intend for this to happen and that they hope the court will be able to see their point of view. The band’s individual members have been under investigation since 2011, but they claim to be willing to do whatever is needed in order to comply with the tax laws.
Currently, all of the band’s assets including their homes will be frozen while the case is on trial. All of the assets that have been frozen are around $6.5 million dollars. The band is still pending trial and the court date for Sigur Ró’s tax evasion case has not been set.
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