Dutch government faces collapse over child benefits scandal

Coalition at risk amid fallout from tax authorities wrongly hunting down' thousands of families

The Dutch government will decide on Friday whether to step down over an escalating scandal in which tax officials wrongly accused thousands of parents of fraud, plunging many families into debt by ordering them to repay childcare allowances.

The opposition Labour party leader, Lodewijk Asscher, who was social affairs minister in the previous government, resigned over the affair on Thursday, denying he knew the tax authority was wrongly hunting down thousands of families" but conceding a failing system had made the government an enemy of its people".