“Give tax authorities a few weeks to put problems on the table” | Interior

That is what CDA MP Omtzigt proposes. He is even willing to help the state secretaries “open a few cupboards”: “As far as I am concerned, they can go through them for a few more weeks, as a last chance. And if something comes afterwards, the Lower House will have a problem with that. “

Omtzigt’s idea comes after a week in which one after the other problem came to the attention of the Tax Authorities: lapsed debts that were nevertheless collected, incorrectly collected collection costs and the maintenance of a blacklist that went against privacy legislation.

“We have two state secretaries and it seems that we have twice as many problems,” concluded GL Member of Parliament Snels at the joint fire baptism of the new ministers Vijlbrief (taxes) and Van Huffelen (surcharges and customs) in the Lower House. They started five weeks ago as the successor to their predecessor Snel, who stepped up just before Christmas because of the childcare allowance affair.

“You wonder how big that cupboard is”

That does not mean that the problems of the Tax Authorities are over. “The state secretaries have just begun, and a few corpses are coming out of the closet,” said MP Azarkan, a thinker on the new set of problems. “You wonder how big that cupboard is.”

He feels a bit like Omtzigt’s plan. “If more comes after a few weeks, we will start a parliamentary inquiry. Then we will dig as a Chamber itself. ” Omtzigt thinks this is a bit too much: “I think it’s a bit too far to start a parliamentary inquiry before State Secretary Van Huffelen has said a word in the Chamber.”

State Secretary Vijlbrief says “please” to be given a few weeks. But he also warns the House: “Errors will continue to be made. And corpses will still fall out of the cupboards. “

Vijlbrief also expresses anger at the Chamber that problems with the tax authorities sometimes only come to the surface through media coverage. “If we find something that is wrong, you shouldn’t wait for three-quarters of a year of investigative journalism before it comes out,” the Secretary of State told MPs. Vijlbrief told the top of the Tax Authorities that they should not conceal any problems for him, because they think it is better for him.

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