The tax office is not meeting its own targets for spot checks and the amount it has raised in fines has fallen 60% over the past five years, the Financieele Dagblad reports on Friday.

In 2009, the tax office handed out fines totalling €96m, but in 2005, the department raised €323m in fines, the paper says.
And in 2006, spot checks yielded €1.2bn in extra tax payments. But last year top-up tax receipts amounted to €481m.
The paper quotes an internal tax office memo as blaming the focus on high profile tax evasion cases for the decline. The concentration on catching people with secret bank accounts abroad has also had an effect.