People with allowance debts can expect letters from the tax authorities again from Friday, because the collection of unjustified or too many allowances will be resumed. State Secretary Aukje de Vries (Supplies and Customs, VVD) announced this on Thursday in a letter to parliament† Due to the corona pandemic, this was stopped for almost a year and a half. According to the State Secretary, this concerns more than one million citizens with a combined allowance debt of more than 1 billion euros.
De Vries writes that the collections will be resumed “to prevent supplement debts from rising and citizens getting into further trouble”. This concerns citizens who had already stopped responding to payment reminders and people who had stopped paying back benefits in recent years.
The claims are made with people who received too many benefits in advance. Following a motion by Member of Parliament Farid Azarkan (Denk), the Tax and Customs Administration temporarily stopped payment reminders, reminders and injunctions from December 2020 to prevent people from getting further into financial problems in an economically uncertain time.
Now that almost all of the corona rules have been released, collection will resume – especially now that the cabinet is going to give citizens with lower incomes 800 euros due to the rising energy bill. De Vries indicates that he understands that this is ‘impactful for many citizens’ and can lead to ‘new problems’. That is why the politician wants to meet people “who need it” with a “lavish payment arrangement”. Even personal payment arrangements are an option here.