Paying Taxes Is for Fools

Paying Taxes Is for Fools

22 January 2026

The news about the exoneration of more than three billion guilders in tax debts up to and including 2017 has been in the headlines for several days now (Rekenkamer Curaçao, 2026). This is not about a handful of CRIB numbers, but about more than 80,000 CRIB numbers. The Antilliaans Dagblad devoted an editorial to the issue. Its conclusion: non-payment is being rewarded (Antilliaans Dagblad, 2026). I fully agree.

Before I go any further: four years ago, before this arrangement came into play, you could get roughly a 20% discount on your tax debt if you paid it off in one lump sum. I had built up a debt myself because the tax authorities had failed for years to take a decision on my formal objections. I thought I belonged to a small group of defaulters. In the end, I simply paid.

With hindsight, I should not have done that. My debt would now have been written off. That is not bitterness after the fact; it is a rational conclusion based on the policy that has effectively been implemented.

My point is that this has blown up the entire social contract between citizen and government. The government provides services, and the citizen pays taxes in return. That is the moral core of the democratic rule of law. But it now turns out that in reality this is not a contract at all, but arbitrariness: those who do not pay and wait long enough are rewarded. Those who do pay are fools.

This is not just an administrative scandal, but a political and moral bankruptcy. For years, administrators and supervisory bodies allowed debts to pile up, files to remain untouched, and objection procedures to be ignored. And now that administrative failure is being dumped on the shoulders of the compliant taxpayer.

I honestly no longer know why I still pay. Not out of loyalty to the government, not out of trust in equality before the law, and not because the system is fair. I pay only because I happen to belong to the group that still follows the rules.

Others who should have paid millions are being rewarded for years of non-payment. They get debt forgiveness. I get moral bad luck. If this is the new fiscal policy, then the conclusion is unavoidable: in Curaçao, paying taxes is no longer a civic duty, but a form of naïveté.

Miguel Goede

 References (APA)

Antilliaans Dagblad. (2026). Editorial: Wanbetaling wordt beloond [Editorial: Non-payment is rewarded]. Antilliaans Dagblad.

Rekenkamer Curaçao. (2026). 3.1 billion in tax debts unlawfully written off. https://www.curacao.nu/nieuws/algemeen/84808/rekenkamer-3-1-miljard-aan-belastingschulden-onrechtmatig-afgeboekt