The tax office accepts the payment of protection money as a legitimate business expense, the Financieele Dagblad reported on Saturday.

The claim is made by a lawyer involved in Willem Holleeder’s ongoing blackmail trial in Amsterdam and backed up by tax experts, the paper says.
‘Of course protection money is deducted from tax. It is a normal business expense like any other,’ Ludwijn Jaeger of Jaeger Advocaten told the paper.
A spokesman for the tax office also admited that ‘the law does not rule out’ deducting protection money from tax. However, because the tax office requires receipts for all business expenses, ‘it is as good as impossible’, the spokesman said.
Bribes and other crime-related payments were tax-deductible in the Netherlands until 2001.