If you have a letterbox, you must check it. If you fail to do so and, as a result, do not fulfil your (tax) obligations or do not do so on time, you may face (collection) charges, fines and other such unpleasant consequences.
MyGovernment
Via the website MyGovernment The Dutch government is in the process of introducing the digital letterbox. Initially, this was a very ambitious project, but when it became clear that not everyone in the Netherlands was yet ready for this radical transition, the pace was slowed down somewhat. Organisations such as the Tax and Customs Administration use the digital letterbox provided by MijnOverheid, but still send all documents the old-fashioned way, on paper.
However, following the extensive publicity campaign a few years ago, many people activated their digital letterbox (or had it activated for them). At the time, many people indicated to a large number of organisations that they wished to receive mail from those organisations in their message box. And from that point onwards, a number of those organisations sent their mail exclusively electronically to the message box.
Conscious activation
Of course, the message box is subject to a set of legal rules. You can find these in the GDI Facilities Scheme. These regulations set out, amongst other things, for whom the government creates an electronic message box. They also state that the user starts using their message box by activating it via the internet. In this way, the user indicates that they wish to receive messages in the electronic message box from the authorities they have selected for this purpose. And from that moment onwards, the following applies: If you have an (electronic) letterbox, you need to check it.
At the Gelderland District Court The question arose as to whether a member of the public had made a sufficiently informed choice. This person had received a municipal tax assessment from the local authority in their digital message box. When the tax bill remained unpaid, the citizen received a writ of execution by post (the preceding reminders had, of course, been sent only to the electronic message box), which included €107 in collection charges. The citizen refused to pay these charges.
The Court concludes that there is reasonable doubt as to whether this citizen did in fact consciously choose to receive post from this local authority in his electronic message box. The interested party submitted a screenshot to the court showing that, for a large number of local authorities (120 out of 238), the option to receive correspondence digitally had been ticked.
In / Out
This citizen has had a narrow escape. He probably unwittingly ticked the box to receive electronic mail from all authorities when he activated his electronic message box, and then simply stopped checking his ultra-modern new letterbox. Until 1 November 2015, the message box operated on an “opt-out” system. All organisations were ticked by default. You had to untick the organisations from which you did not wish to receive electronic mail. This has now been replaced by an “opt-in system”, whereby the organisations are not ticked by default and you must deliberately tick the organisations from which you wish to receive electronic mail (though you can still select all organisations with a single tick). The advice here remains the same: pay close attention!
VWGNijhof and your digital letterbox
Your digital mailbox and the means of accessing it (your DigiD) are strictly personal. You must not grant access to anyone without formally authorising them, not even the advisers with whom you already share a great deal of privacy-sensitive information. You must therefore send VWGNijhof all the information we require for our work in the “old-fashioned” way.
We now receive some of that information electronically. However, it remains important to remain vigilant. We need to verify whether the information we receive is accurate. In our article VWGNijhof and your message box We explain how we deal with this.