JOANNA

Pharmaceutical

In Feb 2014, my boyfriend moved to Netherlands to work in a Dutch company for a few months. At the time, he had 15 years of Pharmaceutical experience which is hard for his employer to find in the Netherlands. We are both Irish and we thought that we would enjoy the experience of living in another EU country. Originally the plan was to stay 6 months in Amsterdam. I joined my boyfriend in July 2014 as I was finishing my studies in Ireland. 

When I moved to Amsterdam I was fully convinced that we would be home for Christmas that year.  We found the excellent work life balance, outdoor lifestyle, interesting and warm culture of the Netherlands so endearing and we decided to stay a "little" longer. 

Over the years, we have been so happy in the Netherlands. In February 2017, we welcomed our daughter Ashling into our lives after just moving into our new home in December 2016. In proper Dutch style, our baby arrived into our world super-fast so she was born in our new home. Our love of the country was so strong, we decided to give our daughter the middle name "Maxima" after the Queen of the Netherlands. We settled into our lives as parents and homeowners trying to budget for mortgage and daycare fees. 

However, our happy little bubble burst in April 2018 with the news that we would lose a big chunk of our combined household income. Since that fateful day in April, we have been so stressed with worry about how we would manage to pay daycare fees, mortgage fees, flights back to see grandparents etc. Our opinion of the Dutch government has totally changed. I used always boast to my Irish friends how open minded, fair and cosmopolitan the country is but now I have changed my opinion. I think it is such a bad idea to change agreements retrospectively with only 4 months’ notice (until we find our fate on 18th of September). We are especially unlucky as we came in 2014 so we only get exactly 5 years of the ruling. We feel torn as we have loyalty and love to the Netherlands but we have also tied ourselves into financial commitments based on the 30% ruling which means we are stuck in a financial situation that we did not expect or plan for.

I really think that there may be short-term gains for the tax revenue of the Netherlands but the loss of credibility and hardworking high skilled people would be detrimental for the Dutch government.