The infamous benefits affair of the Dutch tax office

 

Dear Bloggers,

 

Let me tell shortly that many years ago we brought our kids to childcare center and before we had a childcare mother before they had to go to school and sometimes after schooltime they went there as well. At these days our lives were running smoothly I was a sailor on passenger vessels and my wife worked for one of the gas and electricity company and later on for the phone c company. We earned enough to live on and we got support of the tax office for the child care part. Unfortunately they f*#ked up big time and we had to pay back all of the so called support. It turned my stomach upside down when I saw the numbers on the bill. I phoned them If we could agree on a payback schedule and man they were though. We lost all our savings and we had to sell the car to fulfill their needs. I could lucky enough agree on a down payment for the rest so we at least kept a roof over our head and could feed our kids

 

"Just go to your room for a minute, sweetie," I told our youngest daughter as I briefly rub my 10 -year-old daughter's back. "Why?", the girl asks. "Because Daddy is going to tell things that were pretty annoying to us. Or do you want to sit in?" She shakes her head, no, it's old news to her in the years that have gone by she became a young lady who is 19 now. And she has homework to do. Otherwise,  it’s quiet in the house: the oldest daughter is at that point in life that she is living together with her boyfriend and had some therapy. Our oldest, is going on a study to go and work in childcare. "She lives just a block away and she is trying to getting away from it all and build her own life.”

 Our daughter who is now nearly 24 who had to deal with a lot of our problems and learned a lot about the real world and that the tax office is able to send you down on poverty. "I thought I wasn't allowed to talk to anyone about it," she tells. I can only be proud and smile. "Brave kid I have, huh," says a proud dad "Telling all bailiffs and creditors of all these companies that they had to call back or come back when her dad was home. That is something what we kept hidden for years. I'm so proud." I put two glasses of tea on the table and sit down, let's have that conversation about those unpleasant times. "Every time I talk about it, the chaos in my head gets a little more ordered, it feels a little lighter. And it has to, it has to get lighter." We are one of thousands affected by the now infamous benefits affair of the Dutch Tax office. Me and my wife and  two daughters have "stumbled into the financial abyss," as she calls it, and the family still hasn't quite clambered out of it. "People see this house, with furniture, a car out front, and they think: they have it good. We have it better now than we did then, but we're still in debt. You can't always see poverty on the outside. I would love to shout from the rooftops what happened. And at the same time, I don't know if I can find the words. Only now, more than fifteen years later, do I realize all that has happened. Then right after that I think: I just don't believe it. I can't believe this happened to us."

 

We are writing 2014, I am 46, just being a father of two girls one is fifteen and the other is ten. We got married, seventeen years ago and we were moving into our new house in Lippenhuizen, Since we both work, we did need childcare. Part time. So my wife tells me to apply for childcare allowance at the Tax Office. Not much later, she is on sick leave as she has been mentally destroyed by a manager who tries to get rid of people who are standing in his way. After two years she loses her job because the company she works for wants to end her contract as doesn’t recover soon from her CPTSD. She is not able to take care of anything and leaves us with the administration of our family, so we want to stop the allowance. Then follows a message from the Tax Office: 'The amount to the daycare has already been paid out.' 'But I'm no longer at that daycare, my child hasn't been there,' is my defense. They don't care about that at the Tax Office, because we eventually had to pay back three thousand euros over that same year. I just had no idea how. "In retrospect, all the bells should have rung, we should have done everything at the time to resolve it. But I was not the best bookkeeper that you can find and together with my daughter we tried to pay all the bills and debts and we made several phone calls explaining our situation hard, in the mean time I had to fight for my job, getting a lot of understanding from my boss but getting rejection after rejection, from the Tax office to get a solution to pay everything back. And they were pretty stubborn. Luckily we could close payment deals with other companies and we were in the middle of my daughters exams. We got life slowly back on the move. It was total chaos."

 

From the stress, my wife gains more than 10 pounds, due to the medication the medication made her life bearable . "I used to learn from my own father: make sure son that you can keep your own pants up. I thought that was SO important." I was retraining and working for the bus company on a temps office contract. Now things should work out, at least that was what I was thinking. But it doesn't work out, because in order to work, my wife she needs care and our youngest needs childcare. We were also duped by the new care, things have been changed in the tax system and the shelter gets the money straight away, All of a sudden we received the bills and reminders. Desperate and in slightly panic, I also wonder: have I been too naive? "At bad moments I almost break down from feeling stupid," did I make the same mistakes again?

 

I probably could write a book about it, but in a nutshell: the financial misery is increasing, as the debt is now several thousand euros. "And then we did something we should never have done. We took out a loan to pay off the debts. We thought we would be able to hold out for a while." As I say that, our second daughter walks in, along with Mom. She goes upstairs as she doesn’t want to interrupt while I am writing this story and my wife plops down on the couch: "Another long day ahead of us." "But not as long as it used to be," I complement her, and for a moment our gazes cross. We can remember it well: how she worked day shifts, and I worked late and night shifts, how we have struggled in their off hours and weekends. "If I had to do it again, I would probably fall over. We barely saw each other, the guilt and debts grew, we stuck our heads out and my wife’s mom and dad lend us several thousand euros which we paid back with every penny we could miss. At least we did not stick our heads in the sand. What else could we do?" We didn't really talk about it. Not with each other, no time for that, and my wife could not follow this anymore as she was mentally destroyed and had enough to just get through the day. 

And no we did not talk about it  with others, too much shame. And it feels like failure to me. In my family, you don't hang out the dirty laundry. "And we had two kids that needed clothes and they had to get their stomachs full, because we were poor it did mean to ask the kids to help out sometimes but we luckily never ended up in a marriage crisis." At a certain moment we closed our doors more and more. "Only her mother and other relatives we still allowed here. She knew about it and helped without naming it. Then my mother in law she'd say, 'Come on Jacob, put on your coat, take the kids and we'll go to the Aldi and you fill up the shopping cart with whatever you want and what the kids like. I'll pay for it.'"

 

The mail became more imperative, "In the name of the king," it would say. And: 'Restraining order. Bailiffs followed. "We taught the children: when the doorbell rings, act very carefully, they must not enter our home. So our kids went to the door when the bell rang. Even when bailiffs rang the bell." My daughters told them to come back an other time. They couldn’t do anything as our daughter was a minor and my wife was very ill and could not talk to them.  She was bullied, at school, she only told us that in a later stage. Just like that she only told us as well later, "I was hungry pretty often. "That's what kids do. Who see: mom and dad are struggling, they spare them. Children have a thunderous sense of when something is going on." An empty refrigerator, second-hand clothes and, at one point, no longer than five minutes showers. "As a parent, you pretend everything is normal. I made fun of everything."

 

There were agencies demanding money, but no agencies were offering help. "The school didn't come here, they immediately called in community service. Terrible times, just trying to remember?" Says my wife and she nods, "You were checking every day before school to make sure they didn't have holes in their clothes, putting those lunchboxes as full as possible so no one got suspicious." One time our youngest had a hole in her shoe and she told her teacher that we did not have enough money to buy new ones for her. "The next day the teacher got her some shoes to keep her feet warm." Me: "I felt so embarrassed and empty and felt I had totally failed as a father." Debts had now gone up to our top all because of the loan, fines, unpaid bills. The pressure on our relationship was also mounting and no I am not a quitter so it was not going to result in a divorce. We sold our house and moved to a smaller house, we took the money that we earned out to pay off debts the house we bought back was needing a lot of work to be updated and so we wanted to get a higher mortgage only the bank would not give any credits so we had to get a loan again. We are in the middle of the process with the Tax office to get this fixed so we can live a happier life.

 

Our (s)old house 

We are now applying for help at the council as our children missed a lot due to all of this and through a social worker there might be some money for a new bike and school stuff for the children. "It was the first social worker who cared about us and applied for a fund.".

The children's rooms may have been furnished, but we sleep on a  bed that is almost thirty years old. The mattress is in a poor condition. And then comes the day when my  body signals that it's too much. I suffer from arthroses and I did end up in the hospital care. This is followed by rehabilitation getting of the meds that I have been on for years and later at home. Meanwhile, the family no longer has extra debts only for the house. The refrigerator is stocked again and hot water flows in the shower again. I just share our story, thinking we have been lucky they did not take our kids from us and we have survived this crazy part of life. "I asked my daughter if she was sure she is okay with her youth?  Then she said, 'Dad, if we hadn't been so embarrassed, and unknowing maybe help would have come sooner.' She is so wise." She has become very price-conscious, I still go together with her to the supermarket as she doesn’t have a car yet. She has given herself  some pocket money, but hardly ever spends it. "I don't want to use that until I need it," she then says. "When we saw the other day that some euros had been debited from her account at a clothing store, we joked about it at the table: 'So, did you finally spoil yourself?' Then she told us she had bought a shirt for her and her friend." As her friend had to choose either paying the food for the coming days or this great shirt. She has a good heart and when the time is right she will pay me back anyway. 

 

"My tears, they've been so on the surface the last few months." Breathe in. Exhale. "My daughters are too mature for their age. We are doing pretty well now; we are slowly healing, I think. I am teaching the kids that they are allowed to feel what they are feeling. They are allowed to cry and talk about everything. I didn't do that myself for too long. Now we are learning this, together, as a family. But the childhood of those girls, part of it was taken away from them. And I am kind of wizard if it comes to solutions in life itself, although loosing your childhood is irreplaceable. And no I can't buy that back for any amount of money."

The Old Sailor,