The Ministry of Finance – €2,750,000 Fine (Netherlands, 2021)

Between 2013 and 2019, the authorities wrongly accused an estimated 26,000 parents of making fraudulent childcare benefit claims, requiring them to pay back the allowances they had received in their entirety. In many cases, this sum amounted to tens of thousands of euros, driving families into severe financial hardship. This is at the centre of the ensuing "childcare benefits scandal": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_childcare_benefits_scandal. The AP launched an investigation, ex officio, into the processing of the nationality of applicants for childcare benefits by the Tax and Customs Administration (hereafter: the Administration), more specifically the “Benefits Department” (Afdeling Toeslagen), since this department is not only responsible for the granting, payment, and reclamation of benefits, but also for the detection and prevention of benefits-related fraud. The AP did so, because they received a warning in April 2017 about the Benefits Department's possible processing of the dual nationality of applicants for childcare benefits. This investigation resulted in the adoption by the AP of a report of findings on 16 July 2020 (hereinafter: the investigation report). Before discussing the main findings of the report, however, it is important to notice that, on 6 January 2014, a replacement law (Dutch: de Wet basisregistratie personen) was enacted for its citizen registration. One of the resulting changes was that if a person has the Dutch nationality, dual nationalities were no longer recorded. The main findings of the investigation report were: * The Benefits Department retained the registration of Dutch nationals with dual nationalities, even after the enactment of the replacement law on 6 January 2014. In May 2018, approximately 1.4 million Dutch citizens with dual nationalities were still registered in a database of the Benefits Department. * Between March 2016 and October 2018, the Benefits Department used the applicants' nationality (Dutch/not Dutch)