Employers Tax Increases Limited next Year
THE HAGUE, 17/09/13 - Due to the cabinet’s policy, taxes and premiums will rise by 8.5 billion euros next year. Of the total, companies will take 2.25 billion for their account. Consumers will have to swallow an increase in the burden of taxes and premiums of nearly 6 billion euros.
Over 2013, the bulk of the tax and premium increases still fell on the corporate sector, or some 6 billion of the total of 9 billion. Next year, companies will among other things be hit by higher premiums for unemployment benefits (WW), an increase in the landlord’s levy at public housing corporations and a so-called ‘resolution levy’ of 1 billion euros in connection with the nationalisation of SNS Reaal. The levy of 16 percent that employers have to pay on all salaries of over 150,000 euros - originally announced as a one-off measure - will be extended to 2014. This will cost companies 0.5 billion euros. The employers already took their protests against this measure to the courts en masse in the first year. These cases still have to be heard. Of the total increase in taxes and premiums, 3 billion euros stems from the extra package of 6 billion euros of measures that the cabinet is introducing. The rest reflects the working-through of decisions taken earlier. For example, the advantages of the change in the loss account on losses in 2011 will come to an end. Home-owners will very slowly start noticing changes in mortgage interest deductibility. From 2014, the maximum rate against which mortgage interest can be deducted will be reduced by 0.5 percentage points per year. As already reported earlier, the ‘voting right exemption’ will disappear for new cases. People who are entitled to receive a golden handshake on dismissal generally pay this into a ‘voting right BV’. This they can slowly allow to empty out in a fiscally friendly way to compensate for the drop in their income. Existing voting-rights balances can be taken up next year without restriction and with a 20 percent tax exemption. |