Warning over convincing fake tax office emails demanding payment

Hundreds of people in the Netherlands have received convincing fake emails claiming to be from the tax office (Belastingdienst), demanding payment for supposedly unpaid bills ranging from around €50 to more than €1,400, the Telegraaf reported on Wednesday.

The emails carry the tax office logo, an invoice number and references to the Berichtenbox, the official digital mailbox on the government portal MijnOverheid.

The paper, which reviewed dozens of the messages, found the sender address had been made to look like the tax office’s own domain, while the emails were in fact sent from servers in Croatia.

One version tells recipients a “final municipal tax assessment” for the 2026 waste collection charge (afvalstoffenheffing) is waiting for them, and asks them to pay around €50 by June 15 – five days away – via a button marked “Naar MijnOverheid”.

The button leads to a phishing website that harvests payments or installs malware. Another version demands more than €1,400 for an unspecified invoice and threatens debt collection and the seizure of assets.

The emails address recipients by their full name, which the Telegraaf says suggests the scammers are working from personal data exposed in an earlier leak. That defeats one of the standard warnings about phishing – that fake emails begin with a generic “dear customer”.

How to spot the fake

For internationals, one detail gives the scam away: waste collection charges are set and billed by your municipality, never by the national tax office. The fake email even describes the charge as a municipal tax while claiming to come from the Belastingdienst.

The tax office, which has warned about the messages, said it never sends direct payment requests. “If you owe us money, you will always receive a letter or an assessment with payment information,” it said. “We never send messages about payment arrears via WhatsApp or email.”

MijnOverheid also never includes links in its notification emails – so any email with a link claiming to come from the portal is fake. Anyone in doubt about a tax bill should log in directly at Mijn Belastingdienst or MijnOverheid rather than clicking, and fake emails can be forwarded to valse-email@belastingdienst.nl.

The Fraudehelpdesk, the national fraud reporting centre, said it has received multiple reports of the emails. Phishing losses in the Netherlands rose by €1.8 million to nearly €2.6 million last year, according to banking association figures.