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Comment by radicalbyte | Hacker News Reader

Why aren't the people who ran de gastouderkantoren in jail?

I'm an immigrant (UK > NL) and don't see how you can give anyone blame here except for the BD being inept and the gastouderkantoren committing fraud. The systems here are complex and there are a lot of really dumb rules (like a flat on savings based on a 4% interest rate - instead of the earnings being treated as flat income as in other countries).

Taxes are very hard for non-natives, they use a formal style of Dutch which can be hard for people still learning the language.... and learning a language if you have small kids AND WORK(!!) isn't easy (for me it was very easy but I didn't have kids then and I'm in the top 0.1% of intelligence if you believe that such test aren't BS).

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This is exactly it. If there is any culpability it is on behalf of the gastouderkantoren (and even there: lots of honest mistakes were made) not on behalf of those that got sucked into a system they barely understood (and which plenty of Dutch natives also don't understand).

Don't get me started on forfaits, they should be illegal. The tax office essentially gets to declare what they believe you could have earned instead of what you actually earned and then they tax you on that.

Totally agreed.

There's a whole industry of shady companies who help you with tax-savings, for example a very common one in IT is companies who "help" you claim R&D or innovation funding. I've seen that used a lot but never for anything which was actually innovitive.

The WSBO is a total fraud. But the same happens in every European country using common funds. And despite the trend in this thread to label people in eastern Europe as fraudster, the native dutch commit a lot of fraud themselves. It's easy to prey on the vulnerable fraudster and not look at the state making 'special' and unequal laws for bigger companies, deleting their debts, reducing their taxes, just because the state makes more money if they don't leave. How about the Tax office/BD, who is connected to all the banks and transactions, who as you said above charged you on your 4% on fictional, when they could have easily seen how much you made, or who only reimbursed the people who sued the government? I could go on forever. The people in this thread who defend the officials who made possible for children to be taken away from their families for these small or even inexistent offences are mad hypocrites.

Their IT are broadly inept (it's a cultural thing) and totally incapable of doing it.

And the status quo of keeping it inept benefits exactly one side.

I was also contacted multiple times by people who can help fill in the WBSO forms. It is not that hard to do it yourself.

A recent one is the STAP budget where every citizen can get 1000,- for education and millions went to get rich quick courses run by shady influencers.

Offer free money, people will abuse it, but if you crack down on fraudsters you will probably destroy some innocent people in the process.

> Taxes are very hard for non-natives

Oh, taxes are very hard for natives as well. The whole tax system doesn't make any sense at all and several elected governments have promised to make it simpler for a long time now.

As a highly intelligent and presumably high earning person, why not hire someone else to do your taxes?

How do you trust the people you hire aren’t going to break the law and get you in jail? Isn’t what these people did?

The same way as in every country. Professional certifications aren't just barriers of entry to a profession, they entail a particular responsibility. Otherwise you could just hire a fall guy to get away with fraud.

Okay so based on this thread we have poor immigrants being taken advantage of by shitty fraudster financial advice and the Dutch government in response takes away children and drives a few poor immigrants to suicide?? That seems so disproportionate?

If they fuck it up, the buck still stops with you.

Many tax advisors also are dodgy as all fuck.

It's not about me - I hired an accountant, notaris etc, the same way I was able to invest in learning the language quickly. And had everything they did double-checked. It's about the vast majority who aren't that lucky.

Especially in the context: to own a house in NL most people need two salaries. Childcare was up until about 2010 easily accessible and affordable to everyone. That was all removed as a cost cutting measure, which is why we had stupid systems like this.

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