As soon as a request for a refund is made, strong inspection forces rush to the company and start overturning business records in search of even the slightest illegality, inconsistency, oversight, or clumsiness…
In Lider, we have published entrepreneurial testimonies several times, especially in the section ‘Justice for All’, about the pressure they faced when requesting money owed to them by the state. As soon as a request for a refund is made, strong inspection forces rush to the company and start overturning business records in search of even the slightest illegality, inconsistency, oversight, or clumsiness… Some companies have been forced to lock their doors because of this, but we have not yet recorded that an entrepreneur ended up in prison due to, for example, a tax refund request.
And this, writes Jutarnji, happened to Dutchman Emil Hubert van Egmond. He was pursued by the Dutch judiciary for tax evasion, fraud, money laundering, and forgery of documents. In the meantime, van Egmond started some small projects in Croatia. He even bought a sailboat, and it was that which cost him his freedom. Last summer, he requested a VAT refund of 100,000 kuna. The tax authorities called him in for a conversation, but they also informed the police, and off Emil went to prison, where he remained until March when he was extradited to the Netherlands. The moral of the story? Do not request money from the state; the consequences can be drastic.
