Column | Power strip – NRC

‘I was in a huge time squeeze,’ said political scumbag Roger van Boxtel when asked why he had committed fraud as a supervisory director at KPMG. Time squeeze? So time pressure. But that sounds so silly in his circles. Maybe he had to catch the plane. The plane at the airport. Or was he urgently expected at one of his other sidelines?

But our Roger was pressed for time and that’s why he cheated with the answers of some silly company exam. A KPMG office clerk whispered the answers to him. Isn’t that so bad? No, but it came out by chance when it turned out that he was not the only one within KPMG. At least five hundred pen pushers of this fiscal fraud paradise have been messing around with the exams. The entire office is made up of scammers. Wonderful summer news in a time when so little happens that people in Germany mistake a swine for a lioness.

Ten years ago, KPMG was also doing well. The FIOD was at home there at the time. At that time, there was a corruption, a tax and an investment scandal almost simultaneously. At the time, it was even considered to establish a permanent police station in the basement of the new headquarters. That head office itself was also controversial at the time because it was completely superfluous anyway. And then there was something about a rancid tax construction that certainly did not make the partners poorer.

Last June it said FD an interview with the relieved KPMG director Marc Hogeboom, who told how terribly difficult it was then. But that it will now go crescendo in 2023. Relieved and proud, he told his story. Three weeks after this exuberant interview, our Marc leaves. Stumbled over the exams that dealt with ethics within his profession and the integrity of the accountant in general. Pathetic? No. He continues to share in the profits. So no worries.

But he goes away. Just like Roger, who left out of purity. From what? Out of cleanliness. That’s what he said himself. I got the giggles when I read it. Roger himself too, I hope.

I really only have to laugh at this entire slightly criminal soap opera. Simply because I love gloating. And especially when it comes to people with way too much money. Like angrily banging oat milk yuppies at the abandoned VanMoof headquarters, for example. Delicious yuppies. Of course I don’t laugh at elderly people who are dying in a hospital because they are a little too overconfident from their much too fast electric bicycle, but the fact that doctors now call this type of e-bike ‘the bicycle of Drion’ makes me very happy.

Meanwhile, every disadvantage also has its advantage. I understand that Tata Steel wants to start melting scrap into new steel soon. So bring on those affected yuppies who don’t want to listen to your iPhone anymore. Buy those bitches and urgently transport them to IJmuiden. You suddenly participate very green in recycling. With a solid asshole about it, you will soon be the idealistic centerpiece at a party. And I smell a hefty subsidy. Who has Timmermans’ number for me?

So you can deduct your dilapidated VanMoof from the tax anyway. Because you are suddenly a venture investor. KPMG knows how to do that. Who is the best person to ask there? I am thinking of their new Commissioner Sywert van Lienden. It has now been officially received.

KPMG had previously approved the annual accounts of Sywert’s noble foundation and the limited companies associated with it. After that, the respectable accountant saw no objection to appointing him as a supervisory director. In fact, he fits perfectly within the company.

Nice detail: In that case he is a fellow commissioner of Jolande Sap, once called the power strip of GroenLinks. Leftist Jolande at KPMG? Smart readers now think: the columnist is going crazy. Of course he made up Sywert and Jolande’s.

Indeed: Sywert is a cabaret inside joke, but Jolande? I’m not making that up.