Finnish Tax Auditor Dies at Desk Unnoticed for Days

A Finnish government tax auditor died at his desk while examining tax returns and the death went unnoticed in his office for about two days.

BBC News Online reported the story in 2004, which was recently linked to on the TaxProf blog. A government official told the BBC that the 60-year-old tax official had been working behind closed doors and his co-workers did not want to disturb him.

The Finnish newspaper Ilta-Sanomat reported that many of the man’s co-workers had been working remotely outside the Helsinki office when he died. Those who were inside the office assumed he was busy working on reviewing tax returns.

The tax auditor also frequently spent time outside the office visiting businesses, and the co-workers who would have coffee or lunch with him had been away. His body was not discovered until one of his friends visited the office to ask him to lunch.

The office has approximately 100 other employees and his colleagues are distressed at what happened. They are reviewing procedures.