The Dutch tax office has been forced to extend the tax return deadline from March 31 to April 2 after its IT systems ground to a halt on Monday evening.

‘People who do not submit their return until Tuesday or Wednesday will not have any problems,’ a finance ministry spokesman said on Monday night.

Problems with the website on Monday evening meant thousands of people could not complete the online forms, or were given an error code.

Sunshine

Tax chief Peter Veld told broadcaster Nos the service is used to dealing with last minute demands.

‘The system can cope with a lot but if more than 20,000 people log in at the same time….  this can put a lot of pressure on it,’ he said.

‘Lots of tax returns were made at the weekend but perhaps people were enjoying the good weather and thought “I’ll do it on Monday evening instead”,’ he said.

The website is now operating normally again.