ToeslagenGate

The Dutch tax office’s fraud witch hunt – How the belief in business-like work and the obsession with fighting-fraud corrupted the government This essay discusses Jesse Frederik’s book on the disenchanting Dutch child benefits scandal, and in particular the policy phantom that stricter fraud enforcement would pay for itself many times over. On the one hand it is argued that Frederik offers an excellent overview of more than ten years of ruthless anti-fraud policies through which the lives of tens of thousands of innocent parents were destroyed. On the other hand, it is argued that Frederik’s assessment that in the end ‘nobody is to blame’, is difficult to maintain. The top of the national tax administration – consisting of many flown-in change managers – resorted to risky automated fraud detection systems and consciously decided to go beyond the boundaries of the law.