De Jager tackles 'black' credit card payments

Dutch Finance Minister De Jager has instructed the Tax Department to trace payments with anonymous 'black' credit cards in the Netherlands. This concerns special credit cards and pin debit cards linked to bank accounts in (former) tax havens.

These accounts are not reported to the Tax Department and probably account for hundreds of millions of euros of undeclared funds. At the moment the Tax Department is in discussion with organisations processing credit card payments in the Netherlands to track down the people who own these cards. Minister De Jager: "It is inconceivable that people buy expensive things anonymously through foreign bank accounts and at the same time try to dodge tax. The Tax Department ruthlessly tackles this type of fraud. When caught the fine can be as much as at most 300 per cent.'

According to information in possession of the Tax Department and the FIOD (Fiscal Intelligence and Investigation Service and Economic Investigation Service), these credit cards and pin debit cards are regularly used to buy expensive goods such as jewellery. Besides, these cards are used regularly in attempts to commit investment and VAT-carousel fraud. The Tax Department now has the possibility to filter payments by Dutch citizens by for instance analysing the frequency and location of the payments. On the basis of the account number the Tax Department can subsequently request information about the owner of the account. To this purpose De Jager concluded in the past year dozens of information-exchange treaties with former tax havens. It is estimated that Dutch citizens try to keep about 30 billion euros out of sight of the Dutch Tax Department on foreign accounts.