That the ministers responsible for the fraud hunt by the Tax Authorities have been warned against this by their highest officials, is bothering the Lower House. CDA, D66 and SP, among others, do not understand that then State Secretary Eric Wiebes and Minister Lodewijk Asscher did not intervene, even though they knew that they were excessively jealous of parents.
Read also – Lodewijk Asscher (PvdA) was already aware of witch hunt childcare allowance in 2014
Members of government and opposition parties respond to the unveiling by Follow The Money of confidential notes from senior officials. They would at least have reached State Secretary Wiebes, who was in charge of the Tax Authorities. Wiebes has made notes in the margin.
The officials pointed out that the tax authorities approached parents who could hardly be billed as fraudsters and sometimes had tens of thousands of euros repaid. Wiebes saw that problem, according to his note, but “did not intervene,” observes CDA member Pieter Omtzigt.
However, the Chamber is increasingly directing the arrows at former Minister Asscher. He should have put an end to the excessive punishment of recipients of the childcare allowance in 2014, according to D66 MP Steven van Weyenberg, among others. Asscher has “no social heart”, SP’er Renske Leijten concludes from the documents that the platform for investigative journalism FTM obtained. 50PLUS leader Martin van Rooyen wants to apologize to the “hard-core” former minister, now PvdA leader. An FvD leader and independent MP Wybren from Haga also react sharply.
The successors of Wiebes admitted earlier that a warning had been issued within the Tax Authorities against the harsh approach of benefit recipients who, sometimes through no fault of their own, dropped minute stitches. Whether those warnings had also reached Wiebes and Asscher was not yet clear. In any case, policymakers continued to give priority to the fight against fraudsters rather than relieving excessively affected payment recipients, says the Ministry of Finance.
ANP
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