October 25, 2014

Dutch have best VAT discipline, together with Fins

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 11:55 pm

Are the Dutch goody two-shoes or do they merely possess a strong sense of civic duty? I’ll leave that for our readers to decide.

According to Z24 last Thursday the Dutch and the Fins are the best at paying their value added tax (VAT).

The European Commission compared the expected VAT with the VAT that was actually collected in 26 Member States in 2012. Finland and the Netherlands had a VAT gap of 5%, closely followed by Luxembourg at 6%. Romania had the largest gap at 44%. The average VAT gap for the European Union was 16% which translates to an estimated 177 billion euro in lost tax revenue. This lost revenue is borne by the governments and by the entrepreneurs who actually do pay VAT.

The way VAT works is that it is collected for the government by the businesses at the point of sale. It is a consumer tax, so businesses get to deduct the VAT they themselves paid from the money they send to the government.

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October 20, 2014

Houses of pension fraud Krol seized

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 11:53 pm

Celebrity laywer Oscar Hammerstein must have been out of the spotlight for too long. Volkskrant reports that even though the foundation Vrienden van de Gay Krant (Friends of de Gay Krant, a gay paper) claims not to have money to spend on legal counsel, they have managed to get Hammerstein (400 euro per hour) to seize two of Krol’s houses for them.

The foundation is being besieged by the Dutch Ministry of Education, which wants to get subsidies back that were earmarked for an online meeting place for teenage gays, but which Krol allegedly used to fund his other enterprises during his stint as foundation chairman. In turn the foundation felt Krol should pay their debt as it was he who got them into this mess.

One of the two houses is Krol’s villa in Eindhoven which he wants to sell for 860,000 euro, which includes a bar, a sauna, a hair salon and an obscene amount of marble. Financial gossip mag Quote has photos. The ministry’s bill is apparently only for 206,833 euro.

Krol’s party 50PLUS, who run on a platform of milking the young (read: poor) to give to the elderly (read: not so poor), have accused Volkskrant and AD of ‘damaging’ Krol. Considering that the man who allegedly robbed his employees of their pension funds has not been convicted, nor even prosecuted, they may have a point. On the other hand, the return of Krol in parliament to replace a sick colleague has led to an increase of projected votes of 50% in the polls (read: 1 seat) according to Maurice de Hond.

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October 19, 2014

Amsterdam marathon 2014

Filed under: Sports by Branko Collin @ 11:21 pm

am2014-lucas-rotich-branko-collin-24o

I don’t really have much to say about the marathon of Amsterdam which took place today, except that I liked the photo of Kenyans Lucas Rotich and John Mwangangi that I took on Amstelveenseweg near the finish. The two athletes came in second and third after their countryman Bernard Kipyego who ran 42 kilometres and 195 metres in a personal best time of 2 hours, 6 minutes and 20 seconds, NRC reports.

The fastest woman was Betelhem Moges from Ethiopia in 2 hours, 28 minutes and 35 seconds, followed by Ogla Kimaiyo from Kenya and Diane Nukuri Johnson from Burundi.

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October 18, 2014

Ms ‘Hen the Rooster’ new chicken boss of the Netherlands

Filed under: Animals,Weird by Branko Collin @ 1:20 pm

chicken-branko-collinStarting next year Ms Hennie de Haan will become the new chairperson of the Poultry Farmers’ Union of the Netherlands, Telegraaf reports.

In itself this is not interesting news, but if you understand Dutch you’ll realise her name means ‘Hen the Rooster’. Never was there a poultry farmers’ union’s chairperson with a more fitting name, I imagine.

Ms De Haan told AD that she hadn’t even noticed the funny pairing at first: “Well, I’ve had this name for 45 years now. You don’t often stop to contemplate your own name. My partner had to point out [how remarkable this is]. […] Usually chicken farming is discussed in terms of the environment and the treatment of animals. If my name causes a smile […] I consider that a bonus.”

A popular go-to person for the Dutch press whenever a plane threatens to fall out of the sky is the former chairperson of the Association of Dutch Commercial Pilots, Benno Baksteen, whose last name means ‘brick’.

Every year popular radio DJs Coen & Sander collect the funniest names they can find and crown one of them the ‘shame name’ of the year. Two weeks ago that award went to Wil Helmes, which sounds like the title of the Dutch anthem, ‘Wilhelmus’. Number 2 was Ben Bouten, which means ‘off to poo’. Third place went to Leen Kleingeld, which means ‘borrow small change’.

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October 14, 2014

Crazy verdict: Dutch Rail may abolish paper tickets

Filed under: Technology by Branko Collin @ 8:44 am

lady-justice-chaoukiThe business court of The Hague has determined that Dutch Rail can abolish paper train tickets even though the law says a traveller has a right to an objective proof of the right to travel.

The court felt that the new electronic travel card system (OV Chipkaart) suffices because there are five places where you can confirm you have the right to travel. Arnoud Engelfriet lists them all:

  1. The display of the electronic gate at the time of checking in.
  2. The display of the vending machine.
  3. A paper print-out at the service desk.
  4. A transaction data listing on the Dutch Rail website.
  5. The display of the train conductor’s travel card reader.

Engelfriet and his commenters point out that there are numerous problems with this verdict.

  1. The electronic display only shows that you’ve checked in for a very short time, especially if somebody checks in a fraction of a second later (this happens a lot during rush hour).
  2. If you are in a rush, you are not going to stand in line at the vending machine or service desk.
  3. The Internet listings are only updated after a significant delay.
  4. Train conductors are “masters at being impossible to find”, according to Rikus Spithorst of travellers association ‘Voor Beter OV’ (‘for better public transport’). (Doesn’t that make train conductors hobbits?)

Basically this means that you either show up five minutes early for your daily commute to double check you are actually checked in or you pay a tax in the form of fines every time you fail to check in for whatever reason.

What bothers me is that in the case of a conflict between a traveller and Dutch Rail (and only the OV Chipkaart in place) travellers now have to rely completely on the antagonistic party to provide them with the proof that they have in fact travelled legally. Travelling without a valid ticket is a criminal offence, so why would the state make rules that make it practically impossible for a suspect to defend their innocence?

See also:

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October 12, 2014

Rembrandt’s light in Danielle van Zadelhoff’s photos

Filed under: Photography by Branko Collin @ 9:30 pm

young-woman-danielle-van-zadelhoff

If you have the chance, visit the Press Museum in Amsterdam to view Danielle van Zadelhoff’s photos.

An exhibition of her work will be held there one week only, from 23 October to 29 October. If that window is a little bit too narrow for you, don’t despair. Van Zadelhoff regularly posts her photos to her Facebook account.

Danielle van Zadelhoff is a self-taught photographer. She did a short stint at a photography school, but according to Fotografie magazine (PDF here) her teachers thought she was so good, there wasn’t much they could teach her. In 2006 she and her husband bought a mansion called Spokenhof (lit. ‘garden of ghosts’) in Boechout, Belgium, a renaissance castle that doubles as a studio for her renaissance-like portraits.

young-man-danielle-van-zadelhoff

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October 11, 2014

Skull made from toy soldiers by Dimitri Spijk

Filed under: Art by Branko Collin @ 11:30 pm

skull-smaller-dimitri-spijkHengelo-based artist Dimitri Spijk made this skull out of toy soldiers.

Spijk doesn’t appear to have a website, but I found this photo on his Facebook account. The price of the work is 1,000 euro, although it’s unclear if it’s still for sale.

Check Spijk’s Timeline for other works, I already saw a painting (“for the aspiring Spijk collector” as the artist writes) for 50 euro and a birdseed helmet with the text “voer vogels, niet oorlog” (‘feed birds, don’t make war’—in Dutch it is a pun) for 75 euro.

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October 6, 2014

Wok Agreement keeps Asian chefs in the Netherlands for now

Filed under: Food & Drink by Branko Collin @ 5:30 pm

chin-ind-restaurant-branko-collinAsian restaurants in the Netherlands will receive 3,150 work permits for the next two years.

This may be good news for the 400 or so chefs that are currently unemployed because their permits ran out. Originally the permits were not renewed because the Dutch government thought the restaurants should hire European chefs. Government departments did not agree with the restaurant sector on how difficult it is to cook with a wok.

Frank Chan, vice-president of the Association of Chinese Hospitality Entrepreneurs, told VICE that as a result of the original work permit reduction a hundred restaurants had to close shop. It’s not clear whether this is in addition to or including the restaurants that closed because young Dutch-Chinese entrepreneurs prefer running hotels.

A new agreement between the Dutch government and the sector, already dubbed the Wok Agreement, states that restaurants get a period of two years in which their number of work permits will remain at the current level on the condition that they start training European chefs.

Kaji But of the Sea Palace restaurant in Amsterdam thinks more time is needed. Dutch chefs don’t speak Cantonese and Chinese chefs tend to learn the trade while working in the kitchen but not through formal education, he says. VICE adds that last summer a seven-day course for Asian chefs was introduced to the country which includes a nasi bami bootcamp.

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October 5, 2014

Con artist leaves Facebook page open; arrest follows swiftly

Filed under: Weird by Branko Collin @ 10:28 am

town-hall-haarlem-jan-kunstA man and a woman from Haarlem were arrested last Tuesday on suspicion of theft after the man had left his Facebook page open on the victim’s computer.

The pair had ‘befriended’ the victim earlier when the latter was walking his dog, Haarlems Dagblad writes. They rang his door, asked if the woman could use the facilities, and while the man suggested he would log in to Facebook to ‘friend’ the victim, the woman stole the victim’s wallet.

The two then stole a bike from the apartment building to make tracks.

(Photo of Haarlem city hall by J. Kunst, some rights reserved)

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October 4, 2014

Fruit grower blames Russians for publicity

Filed under: Food & Drink by Branko Collin @ 10:59 am

imageIf you want to get cheap apples, starting today you can get them in Zeeland for 50 cents per kilogram. Martin Duivekot from Vrouwenpolder has 80,000 kilogram Jonagold apples and nowhere to put them, or so newspaper PZC claims.

Apprently now that the Russians have closed the borders to European fruit, traders won’t touch his apples. The apples need to be harvested, Duivekot says, in order to make sure his trees still produce fruit next year. The European Union will buy his apples for 6 cents per kilogram, but having them picked professionally costs 10 cents per kilogram. I am sure you see the problem there.

That’s when Duivekot stumbled on the solution of letting consumers pick his apples for him. Considering though that picking your own fruit is a service offered by many farmers around the world even outside times of international tension, one might entertain the possibility this is little more than a publicity stunt.

(Photo by Alessio Maffeis, some rights reserved)

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