Confusion regarding tax return: free or not? | Interior

Knops said in a debate that in the future it would be possible for citizens to have to pay for digital logging in with the government to make a tax return. That immediately led to commotion among MPs. VVD MP Lodders reacted furiously: “Tax returns must be free for entrepreneurs and citizens.”

Nowhere understanding

Nobody seemed to understand. “Paying to make a declaration is undesirable,” said D66 MP Van Weyenberg. “Weird that you have to pay money to do business with the government,” said his SP colleague Leijten. “How does he make it up?” Asked PvdA MP Nijboer.

The Chamber was already irritated because companies are being confronted with costs for filing a declaration from the beginning of this year. They must purchase “eHerkenning” for this. This is a service that you can use to log in to the government in order to be able to file a tax return.

But there was already a lot to say about that login system. For example, it turned out that within the Tax Authorities themselves were already opposed to using e-Recognition, around 60,000 companies were unable to purchase the log-in tool at all and there were long waiting times when purchasing. As a result, the Tax Authorities had to delay tens of thousands of companies for their return.

Buy eRecognition

But the biggest offense is the cost of buying e-Recognition: companies have to pay 30 to 45 euros a year for that. A Chamber majority of VVD, D66, SP, PvdA and CU had previously opposed this. Knops debated on Wednesday morning about this tricky issue with the House and then let it be known that logging in to the government, and therefore making a declaration, might also cost citizens money. “At the moment, citizens can log in for free,” said Knops. “The question is whether that will remain so in the future.”

Later in the debate, the CDA minister said he did not see that “in the short term” change, but the spirit was already out of the bottle at that time. In the course of the evening, Knops was forced to rectify matters via Twitter: “For the record: people do not pay for making a tax return now and will not do so in the future if it is up to me.” the scenes sound that there was a demand for clarification from cabinet circles.

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