Tax authorities

House fears outcome of investigation into tax authorities fraud lists

The House of Representatives fears that the problems with surcharges are more widespread among the tax authorities. This should become clear after the Christmas recess.

This article was written byEsther LammersPublished December 9, 2021, 8:18 PM

The House of Representatives is “shocked” by the absolute stringy of Toeslagen, which has violated all citizens' fundamental rights for years. Really everything that comes out there last year is “very serious” and “dramatically” wrong, the MPs concluded in a debate. Think MP Farid Azarkan simply calls it 'scary', his CDA colleague Inge van Dijk keeps getting 'angry', and Pieter Grinwis of the ChristenUnie describes the benefits affair as a 'bottomless pit'.

Outgoing Finance Minister Wopke Hoekstra and State Secretaries Hans Vijlbrief and Alexandra van Huffelen confirm everything. Hoekstra calls it “disastrous”. “The trias politician has failed in every facet,” he says, referring to legislators, executive bodies and the judiciary. “This is about our rule of law. And in retrospect, it is more than right that the cabinet resigned because of this,” he says.

A lot of trouble every time

State Secretary Vijlbrief took office in early 2020, after Menno Snels's resignation. He only recently said he had control over the service again: “Every time I opened a closet, a lot of misery came out”.

The House responded to the PwC report, which states that around 200 fraud lists were circulating in Surcharges, containing at least 270,000 citizens, often unfairly. The lists violated many fundamental rights. Aleid Wolfsen of the AP privacy authority previously ruled harshly. He called the list “a repository of suspicions, suspicions, well-intentioned reports or acts of revenge” that marked people as potential fraudsters.

The cabinet is still considering how to compensate this group. Around eight thousand citizens have run into major financial problems as a result. They also received no help with debt restructuring because they were known as “fraudsters”.

Unlawful and discriminatory

The tax authorities will receive a substantial fine from the AP for this, Vijlbrief expects. The AP already fined 2.75 million euros this week because the service also processed the (dual) nationality of applicants for childcare allowance “unlawfully, discriminatory and therefore improper”.

Investigations are still ongoing into whether the fraud lists have also been applied to ordinary taxpayers and SMEs, and what financial consequences this has had. The House will also hear whether the fraud lists have been shared with municipalities, mortgage lenders and banks. The results are feared. This process is “much tougher and more complex” than we thought last year, the minister acknowledged.

Also read:

Allowance parents who were blacklisted had a double problem,

because they were known as' fraudsters' and therefore were unable to access the debt restructuring process that left them with the debt for years.