Trouw: A different approach is needed for faster compensation

Kristi Rongen at a support event for allowance parents and children. Image by Bart Hoogveld

Allowance affair

A different vision is needed for faster compensation, say victims of the benefits affair

The cabinet hopes to smooth out the extremely difficult compensation for the benefits affair, but two prominent victims have no confidence. As long as the government itself wants to control the process, it won't work out, they see.

Joost van Egmond February 5, 2023

“This is a charade to limit the damage, not to help us,” says Paula Bouwer, victim of the benefits affair, in response to the plans by Secretary of State Aukje de Vries to accelerate the processing of compensation. “They still stick to the way they came up with. So that doesn't work,” says Kristie Rongen, who regularly addressed the slow processing with Prime Minister Mark Rutte.

The cabinet announced on Friday an acceleration in processing the total of tens of thousands of files of parents who received childcare allowance and were wrongly described as fraudsters by the tax authorities. These parents and families had to pay back the allowance and therefore got into major problems. Within two and a half years, the claims of all victims must be assessed, the cabinet now wants. The responsible Secretary of State De Vries, for example, wants to deal with files more quickly, especially from parents who 'probably' have not been duped. But above all, the cabinet wants to prevent people from objecting to decisions. This is now happening en masse and is leading to congestion in the organization that is carrying out the recovery operation.

“You also have to shut up”

“I think that's a very bad thing,” says Rongen. “It's the same attitude again: this is it, and you should also shut up.” Bouwer speaks to people who were first rejected three times but later became eligible. This indicates that the first treatment is not good enough, she says, and that victims will therefore fall by the wayside if the options for objection are further limited.

Paula Bouwer has been knocking on closed doors for years. As a victim of the benefits affair, she got into big debts, lost her business and lost contact with her children for a long time. Putting an amount of money there is a complex issue. But the way in which this is now being addressed makes things worse, she thinks. “We now work with fixed amounts of 500 euros per six months in compensation for non-material damage, or 2.72 euros per day per family. That's just disrespectful. This isn't recovery, we're being tortured this way again. Do you think it's crazy that people object?”

Paula Bouwer lost her company due to the benefits affair. Sculpture by Olaf Kraak

The alternative is there

The two are in regular contact with peers. As founder of the Foundation for the Recovery of Onbekend Inrecht, Bouwer, for example, manages an app group with more than 500 members where she hears the most poignant stories about the treatment. Like Rongen, she concludes that the way of assessing damage must be completely different, an approach that has also been discussed several times. “What we need to go is to a reversed burden of proof. Parents must be able to imagine the damage they have suffered themselves. That's what the conversation should be about.”

The cabinet does not seem ready to do that yet. This wants to focus on fixed amounts for all parents. That does not do justice to the big differences in the damage that parents have suffered, say Rongen and Bouwer. Bouwer has also already conducted a poll in her app group: What would you do if you got 100,000 euros now? “For some, that worked well, but most said their damage is far greater than that.”

They welcome working with transparent standards, but that should not be based on results. The method must be able to do justice to the individual damage. Rongen compares with compensation if you have been wrongly imprisoned. “That's 150 euro per day. Pay us half of that, for example. Then I'll split it with my children and we can move on. Because I want to let go of this, but that's only possible once the actual damage has been recovered.”

Better paintwork isn't going to help

Instead, the government is focusing on a series of adjustments to accelerate the procedure. Bouwer is excited about proposals from the Secretary of State to use better software for painting files. That's not going to make a difference, she thinks. “If you listen to parents, you can also save that paintwork.” The plan to let parents report their concerns and needs earlier is also baffling. “We've already mentioned them,” she snarls. “That they dare to write this down.”

At Bouwer en Rongen, confidence in a good solution has certainly not increased; rather, it has been damaged. “Everything that has now been rigged has been done to prevent us from recovering actual damage. I don't hear any substantive reasons why this would work,” says Bouwer.

Rongen refers to the plans primarily as election rhetoric. “They stick to doorposts and carpets so they don't have to step down. The perpetrator has been trying to solve it for three years and they just can't do it. We only have meaningless studies and an organization that costs taxpayers huge amounts of money and brings nothing. It's not complicated, it's being made complicated. Get the tax authorities out of this process and file more with an independent body, or resign. That's what you need to do now to be credible.”

This year, it should be solved, says Rongen. And no, that's probably not going to happen, she knows that. “But there may be some pressure behind it. They also placed that pressure on us.”

Entrepreneurs are a pain file

A major problem is dealing with business damage suffered by parents who were also entrepreneurs. According to the Secretary of State, compensation for this damage is subject to European rules for state aid, which can therefore be a maximum of 200,000 euros per three tax years. “Abuse of the rules,” says Paula Bouwer. “This is about compensation for damage caused by the government. That doesn't fall under state aid at all. '

Bouwer speaks to many people who get into trouble because of this maximum amount of compensation for entrepreneurs. Much more than De Vries calculates. “We already have a Facebook group for entrepreneurs and there are already a hundred members. As a foundation, we estimate that almost 25 percent of all victims are entrepreneurs: from freelancers to large entrepreneurs. That bulk will arrive soon. This will lead to a huge delay if these cases remain so complicated. That way, the Secretary of State is definitely not going to be able to compensate for the damage within two and a half years.”

“The government always focuses on minimal damage or no damage. And they have to object to that again. That takes a lot of time and energy. The government simply has to pay for the damage they have caused. And not the damage they want to pay.”

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