The accounting of former State Secretary Robin Linschoten’s consultancy was a mess, his tax returns came too late and were not correct. But Linschoten never had the intention, according to the court in Amsterdam, to evade the tax and to fool the tax authorities. That is why he was sentenced to 100 hours community service on appeal on Wednesday.
Previously, the former State Secretary for Social Affairs was sentenced by the court to a five-month prison term, three months of which was suspended. This meant that the former VVD politician had actually been jailed for fraud.
On the lower bank
The fact that he does not have to go behind bars is because the court believes Linschoten’s explanation. Namely that he is an awful sloppy fox ‘with no interest in tax law’ who every so often threw a box with receipts and invoices over the fence at his accountant. Then he was off again. His interest in tax law was not fueled by the piles of blue letters he received and a personal warning interview with the tax authorities. Solve this, was the instruction to his accountant.
He then had to make a few estimates, as a result of which Linschoten ultimately paid far too little sales tax and subsequent payment agreements with the tax authorities did not comply. As a result, the VVD celebrity ended up in court in 2017. Over there he sketched how his laxity had meanwhile made him desolate, got no more assignments, had only one commissioner’s office left, had to sell his house while his wife had left him.
No tax evasion
The court in Amsterdam has now weighed the ‘seriousness’ of the case differently than the court and believes Linschoten’s sloddervos defense. Over a period of three years, he paid more than 100,000 euros too little in sales tax. But according to the court, the file shows ‘in no way’ that Linschoten intended not to pay the sales tax to the tax authorities in the end.
“Because here, unlike in many other fraud cases, the aim of eventual tax evasion was not an issue, a different punishment than imprisonment is appropriate,” said the court. But why the former Secretary of State let the matter so derail, threw the blue letters in a pile in the corner and never saw the gravity of the situation remains unclear.
In a response, Linschoten calls the community service unjust and again points to the accountant as the culprit. ‘I didn’t do anything wrong on purpose. I have outsourced my administration to someone who made a mistake that I knew nothing about. I have never denied those facts, but that does not deserve a criminal conviction. ‘
He does acknowledge that he made a big mistake in leaving everything to his accountant. When the blue envelopes piled up and the tax authorities warned him that things were not going well, he also passed this on to his accountant. Linschoten would have done that differently now. But Linschoten does not want to accept the conviction yet. “I still have to read the judgment and then I will decide what to do.”
His lawyer Willem Koops says he is considering going to the Supreme Court. ‘Linschoten has long paid a high price for carelessness. It is sad that this community service order is added to that. ‘
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