December 11, 2007

Number of classic cars and motors doubled in seven years

Filed under: Automobiles,Fashion by Branko Collin @ 4:41 pm

Illustration: a Morris Minor (1953) I saw in the Amsterdamse Bos last spring.

Daily Algemeen Dagblad reports (Dutch) that the number of old-timers in the Netherlands has doubled in seven years, with cars going from 121,000 in 2000 to 204,000 in 2007. The amount of classic motorcycles has risen even more, almost tripling from 32,000 to 94,000. Old-timers are defined as cars that are more than 25 years old.

A number of experts interviewed came up with different reasons to explain this rise. One of them suggested that it may have to do with the increased quality of cars and motorcycles; they last longer. Another thought it might have to do with taxes; owners of old-timers don’t have to pay road tax. A third guessed that the aging population may have to do with it; old people with money buying cars to be seen with.

Link to statistics. Via Telegravin (Dutch).

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December 10, 2007

Dutch tax office makes three million euro mistake

Filed under: Weird by Orangemaster @ 10:00 am
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An eldery man filled in 3,419,635 euro by mistake instead of 3,419 as his mortgage deduction in 2001. The Dutch tax office didn’t notice the mistake and approved the millions. Once the mistake was finally noticed, they tried to ask for their cash back. The man fought and won.

The Dutch Supreme Court said that the tax office should have noticed the mistake and so the man does not have to give back the money. The Supreme Court leaves it up to politicians to decide whether the tax office should always be held responsible for their mistakes.

Remember: if you screw up on your tax form, the tax office will not point it out to you. This time, tax payers’ money is being given to a 72-year-old man for having made a mistake himself. Life is so fair.

And then a brave bureaucrat said that the loss will probably be taken care of by letting the man not pay taxes instead of giving him cash back.

(Link: rtl.nl)

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April 1, 2007

Tax day = Open Source day

Filed under: IT by Branko Collin @ 9:34 pm

Today is tax day in the Netherlands: time to get these return forms in and hope for a bit of cash from the government. Two years ago the state started demanding that business owners start filing their reports electronically, using a Windows and Mac only tool based on Adobe’s PDF. Last year they got smarter and developed their own tool, which works on Windows, Mac and GNU/Linux. The secret ingredient? Open Source libraries. Specifically: gSOAP, OpenSSL, wxWidgets, GTK+, ZLIB, Independent JPEG Group components, Autopackage, and NSIS.

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March 28, 2007

Running drugs is tax deductible

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 8:14 am
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A fisherman in Arnhem convicted of smuggling drugs could deduct the cost of buying and shipping hashish to The Netherlands from his income on his tax return. Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf reported that the smuggler appealed to the Arnhem court after being slapped with a tax bill in the millions of euro. The court ruled that because he had only been convicted of drug running and not trading he could deduct the cost of buying and transporting the drugs on his tax form, which cut his tax bill in about half.

In 2005, judges in the city of Leeuwarden ruled that witches can write off the cost of schooling in witchcraft if it increases the likelihood of employment and personal income.

(Two clichés for the price of one: we’re all on drugs and women have no serious career plans)

(Link)

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