The Inspectorate of Taxation, Surcharges and Customs sees a lot of room for improvement in how the tax authorities approach lawsuits. © ANP/HH

Concerns about the attitude of the tax authorities in court cases: 'Mainly concerned with wanting to win and less interested in citizens'

Amsterdam- There are concerns about how the tax authorities act in complex lawsuits between the tax authorities and citizens or companies. In such lawsuits, employees would mainly be concerned with “wanting to win”, pay insufficient attention to the human relationship with citizens and companies and do not always provide all the necessary documents. The tax authorities say they do not recognize this pattern and states that they have learned from past things.

Thomas van Ossenbruggen Reporter: Pension, Taxation and Personal Financehttps://www.telegraaf.nl/financieel/zorgen-over-houding-van-belastingdienst-in-rechtszaken-vooral-bezig-met-willen-winnen-en-minder-met-belang-burger/87752819.html?utm_source=hyperlink&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=share

This is evident from a report by the Inspectorate of Taxes, Surcharges and Customs. That government organization assesses whether the tax authorities act fairly in — among other things — tax matters. This is not always the case with regard to lawsuits, according to an analysis of five different complex disputes between the tax authorities and citizens or companies. In four of those lawsuits, the tax authorities violated the law.

Human scale

The lack of the human touch is one of the criticisms of the inspection. Citizens and companies often experience the relationship with the tax authorities as “intrusive and overriding”, according to the report, for example.

“They say that the case has had a profound impact on their business life, their personal life and, in some cases, their health and family life,” the report reads. “They speak of years of misery, uncertainty and major financial and personal consequences. In the cases examined, they also feel distrusted by the tax authorities, which, in their opinion, draw premature conclusions.”

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Employees of the tax authorities do not pay enough attention to this. They would mainly be busy carrying out their task and the interests of the tax authorities, and finding its impact on citizens' privacy irrelevant: “They indicate that they are dealing with a substantive and legal dispute in business,” says the inspectorate, adding that the tax authorities are mainly about 'wanting to win'.

Thinking in court

In four of the five lawsuits, the tax authorities also violated article 8:42 of the General Administrative Law Act (Awb). This means that administrative bodies such as the tax authorities are obliged - if an interested party invokes that article - to send all relevant documents to the administrative court. Interviews with employees show that they do not want to overwhelm the judge with documents, and therefore make a selection.

This “thinking in court” stands in the way of “thinking for the stakeholder” — a citizen or company —, according to the inspectorate. In addition, some employees would see invoking article 8:42 primarily as a way to train a business.

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The inspectorate also notes that information management is not always in order and that internal cooperation within the tax authorities could be better: employees still often build on the work of other colleagues in complex lawsuits, and assume that colleague has done the right thing. There is insufficient reflection on one's own work and that of someone else.

Tax Administration Response

In a response, the tax authorities emphasize that these are incidents, that there is no pattern and that only five separate cases from the past were looked at. “In recent years, all kinds of improvement measures have been taken aimed at paying more attention to broader relevant documents in tax matters,” says a spokesperson. “Every time this happened is obviously wrong, and we've always learned from that. That's what our attention has always been focused on in recent years.”

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