Earlier quoted context omitted.
Meanwhile, the irony amidst all this is that the Netherlands is the largest tax haven for companies globally. Literally every brand/company you can think of is legally headquartered in NL for tax purposes. Eg: FAANG, Disney, IKEA, Uber, Mars Chocolate, etc etc
Are you sure you’re not mixing up the Netherlands with Ireland?
Dutch scandal serves as a warning for Europe over risks of using algorithms
31–40 of 197 posts
Re: Dutch scandal serves as a warning for Europe over risks of using algorithms
#32I hate how the correlation between income/country of origin and fraud probability is discarded as „racist“ by at least Amnesty International. Maybe we should first do a correlation and causality analysis and see what it yields instead of closing our eyes because of PC?
That analysis has been done and the conclusions are devastating for the tax office.
https://www.consultancy.nl/nieuws/39000/pwc-belastingdienst-... (dutch)
Re: Dutch scandal serves as a warning for Europe over risks of using algorithms
#33This scandal and the issues at the dutch tax office runs much deeper than just this one set of issues, they also maintained illegal lists of 'potential fraudulent people' on which 100's of thousands of people that had done nothing wrong, such as having the 'wrong' surname. It's rotten to the core and to date there have been zero consequences for the perps and the damage continues to pile up. Our government has fallen…
It's shocking to read, and reminds me of the British Post Office scandal. A €3.7 million + €2.75 million fines are a slap-on-the wrist for what happened. Even €30,000/case seems a pittance compared to its effects on people. It mentions there were "secret blacklists of people for two decades" and that "authorities [were] hiding information or misleading the parliament about the facts". I don't see how regulating algor…
Do two wrong things, when the regulators come down on one of them, point to the other and say "I don't see how this regulation could affect the real cause, over there." Good trick if you can pull it off.
Re: Dutch scandal serves as a warning for Europe over risks of using algorithms
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you sure you’re not mixing up the Netherlands with Ireland?
No, I’m not. Most of these companies also have incorporated in Ireland alongside the Netherlands to exploit this loophole: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Sandwich > Ireland has the BEPS tools to enable US IP-heavy multinationals to reroute global profits into Ireland, tax-free. The Netherlands then enables these Irish profits to get to a classical tax haven (e.g. the Cayman Islands or Jersey) without incurring…
> corruption has enabled these companies to construct confusing and elaborate ways of avoiding their fair share of taxes.
I'm not sure one can consider it corruption, per se, rather it's tax competition on the part of smaller EU states.
To my mind, it's not that the countries are being bribed by companies, rather that the laws attract a (far too small proportion of) global/EU revenue to be taxed in their country.
Re: Dutch scandal serves as a warning for Europe over risks of using algorithms
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, I’m not. Most of these companies also have incorporated in Ireland alongside the Netherlands to exploit this loophole: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Sandwich > Ireland has the BEPS tools to enable US IP-heavy multinationals to reroute global profits into Ireland, tax-free. The Netherlands then enables these Irish profits to get to a classical tax haven (e.g. the Cayman Islands or Jersey) without incurring…
> corruption has enabled these companies to construct confusing and elaborate ways of avoiding their fair share of taxes. I'm not sure one can consider it corruption, per se, rather it's tax competition on the part of smaller EU states. To my mind, it's not that the countries are being bribed by companies, rather that the laws attract a (far too small proportion of) global/EU revenue to be taxed in their country.
I mean, you’re free to blindly dismiss obvious corruption - but it’s quite obvious that these loopholes were designed, and often illegal.
Re: Dutch scandal serves as a warning for Europe over risks of using algorithms
#36> Chermaine Leysner’s life changed in 2012, when she received a letter from the Dutch tax authority demanding she pay back her child care allowance going back to 2008. Leysner, then a student studying social work, had three children under the age of 6. The tax bill was over €100,000. A student can get €100,000 for child care? That is amazing. For me, that is the most surprising thing in the entire article.
€100,000 = ~$108,000
So if that's the credit for 3 children, for 4 years, that's ~$750/month. I have zero idea about how much it would cost for the Dutch, but in the closest city center to me in the US, the average cost for a licensed daycare center is ~$1300/month.
Not unrealistic, really, unless I missed something.
Re: Dutch scandal serves as a warning for Europe over risks of using algorithms
#37> The Dutch tax authorities now face a new €3.7 million fine from the country's privacy regulator. How does this work? Wouldn't the government be fining the government and paying itself with the citizens tax revenues? Also, this doesn't seem to serve as a warning at all. Unless all the politicians and civil servants were removed from their job, barred from public positions and given hefty fines then this is actually…
> Until there are clear consequences enacted by the populace, governments will continue this kind of behavior.
In fact, the government staged a token dissolution right before scheduled general elections, and proceeded to win the elections and come right back into power. Nothing changed.
Truly magical how accountability works.
Re: Dutch scandal serves as a warning for Europe over risks of using algorithms
#38Once upon a time I made the mistake of incorporating a startup in the Netherlands. Never. Again.
What went wrong?
Re: Dutch scandal serves as a warning for Europe over risks of using algorithms
#39> Authorities penalized families over a mere suspicion of fraud based on the system’s risk indicators This is the real story here. The algorithm is incidental.
The families were guilty of breaking the community guidelines /s
Re: Dutch scandal serves as a warning for Europe over risks of using algorithms
#40> Chermaine Leysner’s life changed in 2012, when she received a letter from the Dutch tax authority demanding she pay back her child care allowance going back to 2008. Leysner, then a student studying social work, had three children under the age of 6. The tax bill was over €100,000. A student can get €100,000 for child care? That is amazing. For me, that is the most surprising thing in the entire article.
She was a student at the time she received the letters claiming 'missing information' that led to the (unjust) claim. This does not mean she didn't have a job before that or some other occupation. She was around 30 at that time, and study was just part of her career path.
If you have several children, the child care allowance adds up — I receive over €1000 a month for one preschool child. Multiply this for more than one child and several years…
It is a system that is increasingly seen as hostile to citizens, because you need to update your registration with every change in income. It's silly too, because the allowance you receive goes to a child day care centre or kindergarten anyway, so you are just shovelling money around which leads to almost all parents being burdened with something completely avoidable. The answer is to just make child day care free for all children and not bother citizens with subsidies to pay it. It's probably cheaper to do it that way (we would be following in the footsteps of other progressive countries).