Erasing tax debts is not policy — it is administrative bankruptcy
The decision by the Curaçao government to place more than three billion guilders in old tax debts outside the scope of collection is being presented by Minister of Finance Charles Cooper as a rational administrative intervention with economic benefits. According to the minister, this is not a tax amnesty but merely a technical clean-up of uncollectible claims.
That framing is not only legally thin, it is also administratively troubling.
Good governance rests on several core principles: legal certainty, equality before the law, transparency, accountability and predictable policy. When measured against those standards, this decision falls short on almost every front.
First, there is the issue of equality. More than 80,000 taxpayers — individuals and companies alike — were collectively relieved of tax assessments up to and including 2017. Among them were debts amounting to millions of guilders, particularly in the corporate sector. At the same time, countless citizens and small businesses in previous years were assessed, fined and in some cases forced into payment arrangements that seriously damaged their financial position. That disparity cannot be justified by invoking “uncollectibility,” especially when debts that were already subject to payment plans were also swept away.
Second, there is legal certainty. Taxpayers who meet their obligations in good faith are entitled to expect consistent conduct from the government. By retroactively cancelling large volumes of tax debt, the state sends a perverse signal: waiting, non-payment and negligence pay off. This not only undermines tax morale, but also erodes trust in government as a reliable and predictable institution.
More troubling still, the message conveyed is that timely and correct tax compliance is not a civic virtue but a strategic mistake. Law-abiding taxpayers are confronted with the reality that non-compliance is ultimately rewarded. From a governance perspective, this has a deeply corrosive effect.
Third, transparency and accountability are conspicuously lacking. The measure is extensive, financially consequential and politically sensitive, yet a clear public framework is absent. What criteria were applied? Why this specific cut-off date? Who benefited most? The fact that these questions remain unanswered fuels — rightly or wrongly — perceptions of arbitrariness and political bias. Good governance demands that such doubts be addressed head-on, not brushed aside.
The argument that “improved balance sheets” helped companies obtain financing and invest may be economically understandable, but it is administratively dangerous. Governments are not balance-sheet repair mechanisms for selected market actors. Economic stimulation should be pursued through transparent, legally anchored policy instruments, not through silent retroactive write-offs.
Minister Cooper may claim that he is merely describing the effects of the decision rather than defending it, but that is precisely the problem. Public officials are responsible for both decisions and their consequences. That this minister, despite an accumulating list of governance-related controversies, continues to operate as if principles of proper administration were optional is cause for concern.
What is on display here is not good governance, but its absence. And that is a cost Curaçao cannot afford — neither administratively nor socially.