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> The fraud revolves around small companies ("gastouder kantoren") thinking they found a loop hole in the law. The short version is they would say: "Hey, do you

by em500 4y ago

> The fraud revolves around small companies ("gastouder kantoren") thinking they found a loop hole in the law. The short version is they would say: "Hey, do your (grand parents) sometimes baby sit your kids? We'll register them as a 'gastouder' company and now the government will pay for the childcare.". The problem was that these "companies" didn't have things like a proper administration which was required to get the government money. The "gastouder kantoreren" would them make up some fictional administration and get caught. People might not realize how lucrative this construction was (and still is, AFAIK it still works if you do all your admin correctly). Just like in the rest of the world, it's not uncommon in the Netherlands for grandparents or unemployed relatives to provide daycare for free. But if they register as an official 'gastouder' (guest parent), they can get about €1400/child/month in child care subsidy if the parent(s) are on minimum wage. For context, minimum full time wage is around €1900/month, and 'AOW' (social security for retirees) about €1300/month. Median income in the country is below €3000/worker/month, so grandparents taking care of 2 grandchildren taking the full subsidy would bump them comfortably into the upper half of income earners (all amounts after-tax).

avar 4y ago
Yes it's "lucrative", and there's certainly fraud involved. But the tone of comment (and certainly the rest of this thread at large) seems to be losing sight of how lucrative it is for everyone involved. If you have a child in The Netherlands you're entitled to a daycare subsidy. The subsidy is the same whether you send your kid to the daycare down the road, or if you pay a "gastouder kantoren". It should be obvious how the likely signs of "fraud" in this case are highly correlated with saving the state money overall. If you're paying one of your parents to take care of your kids that's usually win-win, if they weren't getting that income they might in turn be eligible for other poverty subsidies from the state. The overhead of paying a "real" daycare is also going to be much higher in administrative overhead etc. The average daycare worker is also likely to be of an age and inclination (given that they've accepted a job taking care of the kids of strangers) to be otherwise productive elsewhere in the economy, which is less likely to be the case with parents willing to act as a "gastouder kantoren". So cracking down on this in particular seems to me to be at least partially a case of penny wise pound foolish, which the Dutch are otherwise pretty good about avoiding. This system can absorb a lot of fraud before it would become less beneficial overall than the alternative.

by em500 4y ago

avar 4y ago

Yes it's "lucrative", and there's certainly fraud involved. But the tone of comment (and certainly the rest of this thread at large) seems to be losing sight of how lucrative it is for everyone involved. If you have a child in The Netherlands you're entitled to a daycare subsidy. The subsidy is the same whether you send your kid to the daycare down the road, or if you pay a "gastouder kantoren". It should be obvious how the likely signs of "fraud" in this case are highly correlated with saving the state money overall. If you're paying one of your parents to take care of your kids that's usually win-win, if they weren't getting that income they might in turn be eligible for other poverty subsidies from the state. The overhead of paying a "real" daycare is also going to be much higher in administrative overhead etc. The average daycare worker is also likely to be of an age and inclination (given that they've accepted a job taking care of the kids of strangers) to be otherwise productive elsewhere in the economy, which is less likely to be the case with parents willing to act as a "gastouder kantoren". So cracking down on this in particular seems to me to be at least partially a case of penny wise pound foolish, which the Dutch are otherwise pretty good about avoiding. This system can absorb a lot of fraud before it would become less beneficial overall than the alternative.