Only in Amsterdam......I Freakin Hope!

[OverdueSpy]

A convicted robber in the Netherlands has been allowed to deduct the cost of his pistol from the money he must pay back to the victim of his crime. The 46-year-old man sentenced for armed robbery can deduct the 2,000 Euros he paid for the weapon from the 6,600 he must repay the bank he robbed. This is akin to applying U.S Federal Tax Exemtions to Criminal Activities. If O.J. could have produced a 20 million dollar receipt for a butcher knife, after he was found liable for killing his wife, he could have claimed "Well, I've already paid for this because of the costs incurred to buy the murder weapon." Makes my head spin just thinking about how this can be applied.

AMSTERDAM — It is often said that crime doesn't pay, but a Roermond man might beg to differ, having recently been refunded EUR 2,000 for the pistol he used to commit an armed robbery.

In sentencing the 46-year-old man to four years jail last week, Breda Court also ordered him to repay the EUR 6,600 he stole from a bank in the Brabant town of Chaam. But the man had the price of the pistol he bought for the robbery deducted from the amount he was forced to repay.

The director of the public prosecution's dispossession division, Gerard Sta, said it is possible for criminals to have the cost incurred in committing a crime deducted from their sentences, newspaper De Telegraaf reported on Monday.

A spokeswoman for the Breda public prosecutor's office confirmed De Telegraaf's report to Expatica on Monday.

Sta said the costs must have a direct relationship to the criminal offence, and be costs that a criminal otherwise would not have incurred. "A second condition is that the criminal offence must be carried out," Sta said.

He said the law stipulates that the financial situation of the bank robber after the sentence is imposed must be the same as what it was prior to the crime. "It sounds a little bit strange, but that is the law," he said.

Another example would be the costs a criminal incurs in a cannabis plantation. If the plantation is seized by police, the criminal can identify to authorities what costs were incurred in setting up the crop and gain compensation.

Ironically, Dutch Foreign Minister Ben Bot announced on Monday that he would work this year to counter the image of the Dutch as "whore-mongering, coke-snorting child murderers" — a description uttered by a commentator on Fox News recently.

[debwalin]

The difference is that OJ was never convicted, so him claiming that he'd already paid for it by having a receipt for the knife would have been self-implicating

[nihil]

Well, it has not actually happened in the UK, but I believe that a similar situation could arise because of the lack of integration between criminal and civil law.

By that I mean government legislation, not private suits and the like.

You see, the proceeds of crime are taxable in the UK...........the crime itself is punishable..........

Now, under our tax laws you are taxable on your net income, so any expenditure incurred is tax deductible.

I am afraid our Dutch colleagues showed a great lack of imagination..........they should have realised that the gun is a fixed asset, not an expense...........and it will last as long if not longer than a factory?

They should have allowed him to depreciate (amortize) it over 40 years in equal annual instalments

NO!............I have never worked for Enron

[Guus]

As twisted as it is, this is actually old news (but Dutch media picked it up again too). About two years ago, something similar came up with pit-bulls and other fighting dogs that could be deducted from tasks if one bought them 'for business.' Criminals could buy dogs as weapons or deterrents, and deduct their costs.

As I understand it, it has little to do with tax though. We have a law here that lets government seize the profits made by criminal enterprise (translated: “pluck-them law”). The costs of said gun (or dogs) are deducted from the total amount that can be ‘plucked’ from the criminals in question. That’s the saving under discussion. This means that before a criminal can deduct the costs from his gun, he first must've been cought an convicted.

Still, it's an odd rule. I really don't get why there hasn't been made changes in legislation to stop this behavior - I guess that there are more pressing matters to attend to first.

<edit>

I found another example: Farmers of marihuana (who, in contrary to popular belief, are criminals by Dutch law) are able to deduct the costs of the plants/seeds and the rent of the hanger where they grow the stuff.

[11001001]

Originally posted here by debwalin
The difference is that OJ was never convicted, so him claiming that he'd already paid for it by having a receipt for the knife would have been self-implicating

But he was found responsible in the wrongful death civil suit.
This is where it would apply; in the civil penalty that he had to pay to the families of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown.