WTS in Netherlands

The EU Commission recently decided to initiate infringement proceedings against the Netherlands (INFR 2024/4017 of 25 July 2024).

On 25 July 2024, the European Commission published its decision to initiate an infringement procedure, which may force the Netherlands to reconsider their discriminatory taxation practice regarding the taxation of foreign investment funds which has been in place for years.

As of 1 January 2022, companies that qualify as a withholding agent for Dutch wage tax and so-called collective administering organisations are obliged to notify the Dutch tax authorities of payments made to per­sons who are not on the payroll

The Amsterdam Court of Appeal denied the dividend withholding tax exemption for a distribution to a Belgian family holding company due to lack of substance.

On October 24, 2022, the Netherlands published the draft bill on Pillar Two called ‘Minimum Tax Rate Act 2024’ (news item). This draft bill is open for public consultation until December 5, 2022.

The 30% ruling is a specific tax regime for foreign employees who meet certain criteria and who are temporarily assigned to, or hired from abroad by an employer in the Netherlands.

February saw the Supreme Court of the Netherlands rule in a case concerning the conditions for forming a VAT group in the Netherlands.

On 22 December 2021, the European Commission (“EC”) published a proposal for a directive to prevent the abuse of shell entities for improper tax purposes (hereafter: “ATAD3 Directive”).

Effective 1 January 2022, the Netherlands have implemented a ground-breaking legislation to end its long-standing practice of allowing unilateral downward TP adjustments.

The Dutch government intends to introduce measures to (better) curb dividend stripping with respect to portfolio shares.

The State Secretary’s Decree of 22 March 2019 (No. 2019-42405) describes the circumstances under which it may be assumed that the collective investment fund in question is under ‘special government supervision’.

On 3 September 2021, the Appeals Court at ‘s-Hertogenbosch ruled in a case of a German real estate investment fund in contractual legal form (Immobilien-Sondervermoegen) – ‘the Fund’, with respect to its foreign tax payer status for its income from Dutch real estate in the years 1997/1998 until 2009/2010.