Bastiaan en Lily's blog

Well at least we got one step further in this ordeal. Called the tax department again last night. They hadn't received my letters, atleast according to what the guy could see though I would have expected the first one to have arrived at least. They probably ended up at the wrong persons desk. Alas.

The good news though is that my initial phonecall has bore fruit so my well meant thanks go out to the lovely lady that helped me that night/morning.

They have brought my original tax statement to 0. That means I get no money nor need to pay money. It is a preliminary result though. I'm guessing (hoping) it means that I actually get money returned, if it would have meant I still owed money I'm sure they would not have brought the amount to 0. We will learn in due time and undoubtedly they will send it to me and it won't arrive or something or other..

We're not out of the woods yet though. My second tax statement (different department) wasn't re-evaluated (I didn't know about its existence when I made the aforementioned phone call) so that one will need to be paid all though I too have doubts about its validity. I didn't know about this one until 7 days ago and by that time all payment terms had passed. Now it will take at least another week before the money gets transferred into my account in Holland and then several days before the tax department get it, and that all with staggering losses in exchange and international transfer costs (banks are thieves!). Anyways by the time this money is on the tax departments bank account less then a month has passed since I was made aware of it, but I will probably have collected several fines of which I will not be made aware until several weeks from now.

And that all because the Dutch Tax Department wants to save money on bloody postage stamps!

Anyway, all said and done, I can sleep again at night, well at least until the next encounter with the Dutch Tax Department. They already send me another letter (dated the 27th of October that I received yesterday, so yes this letter still predates all the horrors of this month) asking me why I haven't specified anything over my 2009 financial year. This is not mandatory but would work in my favor because they are under the impression I'm supposed to pay taxes over 2009. I wonder what they are on about, I have no more income in Holland except maybe a couple of dollars of interest on my bank account....