Allowance parents out in the cold: personal file will no longer be available
Payment parents no longer receive a file with all their tax documents from the government. On March 14, the government decided that this so-called “personal file” will no longer be created. But Radar is getting signals that this has been the case for some time.
40,000 people have been recognized as victims in the benefits affair. The government has launched a complex recovery operation for them, run by the Implementation Organization for Recovery Surcharges (UHT). The UHT collects information about the parents in the systems of the tax authorities to create a file that forms the basis for reparations.
Most parents receive a “parent file”, which contains only part of all documents. Namely, only documents about the childcare allowance that the UHT finds relevant to the parent's process. Other surcharges are not included, as are documents that do not matter according to the UHT.
These are, however, in the “personal file”, which was requested by 5,000 parents. For example, they want it because they don't believe that the UHT really chooses all relevant documents, because they want to know why the tax authorities ever labeled them a fraud, or because they suspect that blacklists with their name on them have ended up at other institutions.
The promise of the file
Radar let in March 2024 already seeing that these parents were presented with a waiting period of years. They were still promised that they would eventually receive this file.
Officially, that promise was revoked on March 14, 2025, when the government announced “to stop compiling and providing the personal file immediately.”
Signs point to an earlier decision
However, between January 19 and February 17, the UHT webpage explaining file applications changed. The new text read: “Did you request a personal file? Unfortunately, we have no capacity to make these files. '
A similar story sounds from the UHT itself. Radar spoke to six anonymous sources who are working on or have recently worked on files. (Two of them provided proof of their employment; the rest were afraid to do so.) These six people are working on parental files. We ask them: does the UHT still work on personal files at all?
Four don't know. At least they haven't heard of it. Two employees say explicitly: the UHT has stopped having complete files. “We don't do personal files anymore. That stopped more than six months ago,” says a source.
Evidence from lawyers
The third signal that files have stopped comes from the legal profession. Together, the law firms of Suzanne Arakelyan, Narda Teke-Bozkurt and Nursel Köse-Albayrak represent around 1,600 benefit parents and have requested the personal file for them all, sometimes years ago. Not a single personal file has been delivered yet, they say.
This prompted lawyer Köse-Albayrak to ask about files at a hearing with the UHT in early February. According to her, the UHT official present replied that, in principle, the personal file will not be provided. This is confirmed by documentation of the hearing that Radar saw.
A few weeks later, Köse-Albayrak asks another UHT official in another hearing when that decision has been made. Since when are personal files no longer given? The answer was “a year ago,” says Köse-Albayrak.
The Secretary of State responds
Secretary of State for Recovery and Benefits Sandra Palmen says these signals can be explained by the fact that it was previously decided to “no longer give priority” to personal files. This was communicated by the government in mid-2022. The personal file will one day be delivered, is the promise, because it remains a right for citizens to request their information, but it will disappear “as part of the recovery operation”. The Secretary of State's full response is here to read.
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Excerpt: Tax authorities stop promising personal files for parental benefits
- 24-03-2025
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