This lawyers office explains that the tax office does not require a judge to take a piece of your wages and your employer is obliged to do what the tax office requests.
https://www.jongbloed-fiscaaljuristen.nl/databank/formeel_belastingrecht/beslag_belastingdienst_op_loon_uitkering/#:~:text=Het%20beslag%20wordt%20gelegd%20om,mogen%20dit%20dus%20zelf%20beslissen.
That right here seems to be the critical link in the causal chain. Letting one agency wield both executive and judicial-ish powers? More streamlined, but you better hope they never get it wrong.
That's not completely what happened here (source: degree in Dutch tax law).
What basically happened is that the rules were extremely strict, to prevent fraud. In the past, benefits fraud was considered a big issue so they made extremely strict rules. For example, to receive the childcare subsidies, you (obviously) need to prove that you have paid the childcare fees. That's sensible. But the rules were designed to be extremely strict and the average person wasn't aware of those super strict rules at all. These subsidies are granted per year. So if you make one little mistake, you have to pay back all the received subsidies for the entire year. That's easily into the 5 digits. And the tax authorities can ask you for admin from up to 5 years ago.
For example: you have to keep every invoice and every proof of payment. If one invoice is missing, the tax authorities could say "you didn't prove you actually paid for childcare" and you had to pay back the entire year's subsidies. Even if the daycare provided a statement that you did actually pay, because the daycare could be in on the fraud (in the past this did actually happen, some daycare associations would offer to do the parents' admin and make fraudelent claims). Even if you couldn't prove the payment of say, €100, you would have to pay the whole €10000 received in subsidies back.
And there are extremely strict rules about what qualifies as a proof of payment: that's only a bank statement, or if you paid cash, a bank statement showing you withdrew that exact amount of cash on the date of payment and a written proof of payment from the daycare that you paid cash. So, if you own a cash-based business and you pay the daycare cash every month, you are basically screwed if the tax authorities decide to audit you. Or if you budget using the cash envelope system and withdraw €1500 the day you get paid and then pay the daycare €600 a week later. Or another formal rule: if you are a single parent, or a divorced parent, or a couple, you can apply for childcare subsidies, and so can a married person who lives alone while their spouse lives elsewhere in the EU (for example, if your spouse is incarcerated in Germany). But if your spouse is incarcerated in the USA, you don't qualify for childcare subsidies. You could, if you filed for divorce. But normal people don't know that. They find out years later when the tax authorities come in for an audit.
What happened is that the tax authorities audited people (and another layer in this scandal is that racist criteria were used to determine whether someone was audited or not) and requested documents from people to decide whether they qualified. In good faith, people sent what they had, but they didn't have the exact documents. The tax authorities weren't exactly clear in what they needed from people either. So they sent a ruling (beschikking) which is open to appeal, but if you're an average person you don't stand a chance. You either don't understand what that letter means and don't appeal, or you just show up in court with your story and tell the judge you're an honest person and you did nothing wrong. The lawyers on the authorities side give their legal argument and the judge has no other option but to rule in their favour, because technically you did break this tiny little rule that no one knew about. Not knowing the law is no defence. And the rule was written in such a way that it gave the judges very little wiggleroom - because the politicians who designed the rules figured the judges let of people "too easily". When the ruling is final, the tax authorities don't need to use the services of a bailiff to garnish your wages or seize your property. But they can't just do that for no reason at all. There's always an appeal procedure. It's just extremely hard to win. Any childcare subsidies debt over €3000 was automatically considered fraud, so unlike a regular tax debt, you don't have a right to a 24-month payment plan and other debt relief. Plus, the moment childcare subsidies stopped, usually one parent had to quit their job to care for their child, so the family lost half of their income.
What we should do, but what we didn't do because we don't consider that "fair" is just have daycare paid for by the government, just like primary schools. Our government keeps repeating that they want more women to work, and wants them to work more hours. What you need to do to achieve that is make childcare more accessible. Let parents pay an income-based daycare if you like. But the current system where parents pay €8/hour/kid to the daycare and then apply for income-based childcare subsidies based on the amount of hours that the parents work, that almost everyone qualifies for and pays the majority of the costs of childcare, that is just extremely complicated. Especially because they chose to let this be handled by the tax authorities who are extremely good at finding fraud and auditing but whose organisation is not designed to hand out money. Just let everyone send their kids to daycare if they want to and let parents pay a token fee.
It's by the way not extremely special that our government resigned. It's a bit of a tradition to do that if there's some sort of scandal. Most governments actually end up resigning instead of completing the full term. Our PM has lead 3 administrations so far and 2 have resigned. He will probably win the next elections too and start a 4th term in office. Our previous PM led 4 administrations and they all resigned. It's not a big thing at all and especially not now with the elections already scheduled for March.
I wish I could tell you what was going on with the riots though. The whole downtown of my city is destroyed. I haven't seen anything like this in my lifetime. We are strongly anti-authoritarian and strongly anti-hierarchy, which is why our government decided to just give out "behavioural advice" and not an official lockdown and curfew. They tried for a year to nudge us into compliance. But it didn't work anymore. Drastic measures had to be taken. Everyone knew it was going to be a shitshow which is why they avoided taking drastic measures for so long. But this violence was a lot worse than anyone had expected. It's a combination between a well-organized Covid-conspiracy movement that has joined forces with a few far right parties and yellow vests activists, and a whole lot of bored teenagers who have no idea they're being used by movements with bad intentions. They're just bored of sitting with their parents and angry that they can't have any fun. It looks like the worst is behind is now but I expect the small-scale unrest to last until the curfew is lifted. Those mass demonstrations might actually cause an increased infection rate and a longer lockdown. And then the conspiracy folks could say "see, the evil government planned to extend the lockdown all along and now they blame it on us freedom fighters!".
For Americans the violence probably still looked pretty tame, no one died, no one was seriously hurt, but in my city the police had to use teargas. That was the first time in 20 years that the police used teargas in this province. In our country, we talk first, then we use violence. They tried to persuade people to go home for a few hours, only when the crowds started to get violent, the riot police showed up. And they don't attack rightaway, they warn people first. There's terrible footage online of a girl being hit with a water cannon, she claims now she did "nothing wrong" but first the mayor, then the police, then the riot police had literally ordered her for several hours to leave that location and she refused. I'm sad that someone got hurt but they had the right to use violence at that point. She was dressed in a hoodie so they probably had no clue it was a girl - and it shouldn't matter anyway. If you are provoking a person operating a water cannon on purpose you know what's going to happen. She was ordered to leave a million times, she didn't, she could have easily carried a firearm or something to shoot at an officer. The situation was definitely that grim.