(Blog entry originally posted  on March 27^th 2009)

We are not strangers to each other. We have met before.  It was March 2000 the month marked as the collapse of the Dot.com firms dragging with them the whole ICT industry.  At the time I was a Director of Operations in a Dutch software firm with great products but wrong timing. 

For those of you that joined the rat race after 2000, I can tell it was an amazing time back then, whereas just anyone could get an investment for any technology idea or a concept for a Dot.Com firm.  The new firms were traded in much higher values they represented and a catastrophe was inevitable.

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Dutch Tax refuses to speak English

To our regret, about two years ago, the Tax authorities in the Netherlands have taken the decision not speak any language than Dutch while speaking to local taxpayers. The decision includes all communication with taxpayers even and especially if the Tax employee is able to express himself in other language.

This one-sided harsh decision was coming as a surprise to most non Dutch speaking people in the Netherlands and has caused a major frustration among individual as well as companies.

The Netherlands is characterized by hosting hundreds of foreign firms and thousands of expatriates living and working locally. Some governmental authorities such as the NFIA are concentrating their efforts on attracting foreign firms to invest in the Netherlands.

Ironically, the same Tax authority that grants the ruling 30% as an incentive to expatriates, is the very same authority that refuses speaking even English with them.
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I would like to open my blog with a tribute to Captain Chesley B. “Sully” Sullenberger III and his crew that landed flight 1549 of US Airways into the Hudson River after hitting flock of birds minutes after takeoff. The amazing result was that this crew has saved the life of 150 passengers onboard.

We did not expect that. We expected something in line of the sea crush of the Hijacked Ethiopian Aircraft back in 1996. This was a remarkable landing that was a direct result of high professionalism and a little luck. The air traffic controller who was talking to the pilot, testified later on that when he heard of the captain’s decision to land on the Hudson, he was convinced he is the last person to talk to this flight.
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