Ahhhhhh... damn it. Blue envelopes... and as people who live in the Netherlands know, that means that it is some sort of communication from Belastingdienst (the Dutch Taxation Office)... now most of the time, it isn't anything that interesting. Mostly just adjustments to the child allowance or subsidies or that sort of thing, or a definitive assessment which means that you either need to pay money or you receive money. In our case, we usually received money due to our conservative estimates of what we would earn. I always preferred to receive too little through the year and then get a nice surprise at the end of the year rather than the other way around.

... but other times, it means that you have forms to fill out. And that was again, generally no problem when we were living in the Netherlands. I would be handling most of that... for some reason, my wife is really disorganised like most musicians (well... she says that she has really improved since she has been with me... and it is better, but I still think it is disorganised). Plus, she hasn't really ever understood fully how these things work... so, there is often some explanation that is required... each year. Easier to just do it myself for the whole family. Perhaps when my kids are older, one of them can do a bit of it as well?

Anyway, when we are on the other side of the planet... things do get a bit more annoying. Firstly, we often receive the letters about half-way to the due date... so, it is a bit of a scramble to get them properly filled out. That, and my Dutch is definitely much rustier since moving to Australia... and my tax Dutch was always a little bit hairy!

... but I really wasn't expecting these blue envelopes... I thought that I had properly disconnected us from the Dutch system!

... and when I opened it... hmm, it wasn't really a proper income tax assessment... but instead, a statement for our worldwide income. Further research led me to understand that they needed to do this because we were still linked to the Dutch welfare system somehow! And that they needed to have this declaration to make adjustments to our payments... which are zero.

So, hopping onto the Toeslagen website (the welfare site...), and it appears that I had stopped everything... but the Kindgebonden payment (at zero...) was still active. This is the payment that all families get to help with the costs of having kids. Easy enough... I will stop it through the website...

... or not.

So, first option... do you want to stop the Kindgebonden... Yes.

Are you stopping it because you earn too much? No... I'm stopping it because I don't live in the Netherlands...

Are you stopping it because you have too much in assets? Again, no... same reason.

Result... you can't stop the subsidie, you have to contact the Belastingdienst by phone. Sigh...

... well, hacking government forms is now a required life skill.

So, restart... but change the answers to Yes!

... nope... you can't stop the subsidie because you might miss out on money. But I don't want the money... especially if I have to fill out paper forms and then post them (at my own cost...) back to the Netherlands!

Sigh, I guess that means I have to call the other homeland... half an hour on the phone, and it was stopped. BUT, due to the lag time of the subsidies and the assessments, we will need to do this form... AND next year. AND then... it should be stopped... unless there is something else that I overlooked that is still triggering the form request!

ARRRHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGGH!!!!!! I don't even want the money.....

I can also be found cross-posting at:
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