A factual overview of the 2020 FIOD tax-fraud investigation and how it was resolved — for partners, suppliers and candidates who want the full picture.
In September 2020, the Dutch Fiscal Information and Investigation Service (FIOD) opened an investigation into suspected tax fraud, which included a search of business premises in Wormer connected to companies under the same management as DataOne.
The matter centred on the VAT (omzetbelasting) treatment of server rental and hosting services provided by the group's entities between 2017 and 2020 — specifically, the EU place-of-supply rules (business-to-business versus business-to-consumer) and which entity was responsible for declaring VAT on specific invoices, where invoicing for multiple related entities ran through shared software.
Formal VAT assessments (naheffingsaanslagen) were first issued in November and December 2021, totalling roughly €654,000 across the entities involved. These were annulled in full by the tax authority in 2022 on procedural grounds (the EU-law defence principle, verdedigingsbeginsel, had not been observed before they were issued).
New assessments covering the same 2017–2020 period were issued in December 2022 and December 2023. These formed the basis of the settlement described below.
On 16 April 2024, the parties and the Belastingdienst (Dutch Tax Authority) signed a vaststellingsovereenkomst (settlement agreement) resolving the underlying VAT-treatment question for 2017–2020:
In total, the settlement set outstanding VAT across 2017–2020 at approximately €46,840 (plus statutory interest) — down from the roughly €654,000 first assessed in 2021.
This page is published for transparency towards our partners, suppliers and prospective colleagues. For questions, please contact us.