Mogens Glistrup

Who was Mogens Glistrup?

Mogens Glistrup was a controversial Danish politician, lawyer, tax protestor and member of the Danish parliament and founder of the Progress Party.

From 1956 to 1963 Glistrup was an associate professor in tax law at the University of Copenhagen, and after leaving the university he became the owner of one of Denmark's leading law firms. On national television in 1971 on the last day for sending in the tax return, he praised tax frauds as the freedom fighters of our time, and he displayed his own tax card with a tax rate of zero. His television appearance triggered an outrage, and Finance Minister Poul Møller made a complaint to Danmarks Radio, stating that they should rather have presented factual information on filling out the tax return. The government proceeded to have police and tax authorities begin an investigation into Glistrup's finances.

On 22 August 1972, Glistrup founded the Progress Party, and in the landslide election of 1973 the party gained 28 seats of 179, making it the second-largest in parliament.

Glistrup described the income tax as a remnant of the stagnant agrarian society of the past, and wanted the income tax removed over a period of seven years by gradually increasing the tax threshold. His manners in parliament were anarchistic and reckless and he displayed a grotesque sense of humour, the most famous example of which was his suggestion to replace the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with an answering machine saying in Russian that Denmark surrenders.