Dutch Holocaust Survivor Told To Pay Taxes On Child Slave Labor Pension
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AMSTERDAM (JTA) — The Dutch tax authority is seeking payment from an 86-year-old Holocaust survivor for a pension stipend that she is receiving from Germany for her employment as a child in forced labor.
The Tax and Customs Administration demanded in summer that Inge Prenzlau pay a portion of her $156 monthly compensation stipend from Germany even though that country exempts other recipients residing in Germany and beyond from paying taxes on that class of payments, Het Financieele Dagblad last week reported.
Prenzlau worked at her father’s factory without pay when she was 11 years old. She began working in 1942 after her father fell ill. The family was forced to send her to work to prevent the German occupation forces and local collaborators from taking over the factory. She had to walk to the factory for two hours in each direction from her home because Jews were not allowed to use public transportation.
Prenzlau took the Dutch tax authority to court, seeking an injunction against their motion to collect. The court instructed the government to sort out the dispute.
Menno Snel, a politician for the liberal D66 party and State Secretary for Finance, is opposed to making an exception for Prenzlau, Het Financieele Dagblad reported. In a letter he sent last year to the tax authority, he warned against making a concession that would set a precedent for “many other stipends rooted in such things as war, for example, disaster, terrorism, hijacking and abuse.”
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