Preparing for Legal Efforts

Dear UENL Community,

Some brief updates also shared via our Google Group.

1. Government Fall. As most of us are aware, the fall of the government has indeed highlighted problematic practices associated with taxation. At the moment, this does not have direct implications for our case however, naturally, the legal team is aware of this broader context.

2. Meetings with Belastingdienst. Our legal team has met for a second time with the Belastingdienst to come to an agreement on how the case will proceed in court, including what information will be necessary to collect from each person. Unfortunately, no agreement has been made yet. There is a third meeting already planned in which they hope to have clearer terms established. While frustrating, I assure the legal team is working expeditiously.

3. Your Information. One of the key points from these meetings is to determine specifically what information is needed from ALL OF YOU to ensure you are represented and also to ensure that any court decisions impact you as appropriate. We anticipate that, at the conclusion of the third meeting, we will know specifically what information you must organize and how to submit it. In preparation, I would already recommend identifying when your 30% rule will expire under the new legislation. As soon as we know specifically what must be collected, we will inform you - but I am certain that the date of expiration will be important.

When we have more information, this will be shared through the Google Group. Please do join if you are interested to follow all updates.

Join the UENL Google Group

As UENL ramps up its efforts for legal action, we are forming a Google Group in order to better reach interested community members.

We will use this to stay updated about the UENL litigation process over the next 2-years. To ensure that all are able to view this content, this is a PUBLIC group. However, we have enacted a series of measures to maintain privacy and smart use to the extent possible. This means that all posts are moderated, member email addresses are truncated, and no personally identifiable information is shared. Posts from admins to this group will be kept minimal - specifically for litigation updates and relevant calls-to-action along the way.
Spam is explicitly forbidden, and posts that share personally identifiable information will not be approved. We thank you for respecting these community guidelines.

Interested to join the group? Please follow these steps

1. send an email to uenlcommunity+subscribe@unitedexpats.nl.

2. reply to email to confirm (don’t use link in email, it doesn’t always work)

3. wait for administrative approval (once per week)

The Time Has Come

It has been a long time since updated this website. Many things needed to happen before we could find our footing and decide how to proceed. Our board shifted, with our founder moving back to the United States and other members needing to refocus on lives and families. We had to spent countless hours talking with lawyers - understanding our rights, what was possible, and what was simply a dream. We had to run numerous surveys with our community to identify if there was energy left to fight, if there was belief in the cause, and if we could really afford another round.

But … our community has told us clearly they are ready to for another round, they are ready to contribute, and they are ready to share their voice again.

So we did the homework, vetted potential legal teams, solicited expressions of interest, and put it the community. And, now, we have our answer. The UENL community has voted to hire Taxperience to serve as its legal representation as we challenge the legality of the #30Rule.

About the Legal Strategy

Dutch tax law contains specific provisions for ‘class actions’. Under these provisions a large population of taxpayers can benefit from the outcome of one (or several) court cases. Taxperience suggests a shortened litigation strategy (including opinion from Supreme Court) that will rely on several selected cases in line with class action.

Taxperience’s strategy removes the process of appealing to the higher tax court and, instead, negotiates in such a way that advice from the Supreme Court is used to inform the lower tax court. All parties must accept this process and decision. To be clear, when the Lower tax court is asked to involve the Dutch Supreme court from the start, the former (Lower tax court) is not obliged to do so. This effectively means that the cooperation of the tax authorities and the Lower tax court are needed in order for this process to work. Taxexperience has significant experience in such negotiations, but of course, there is no guarantee.

The estimated costs are between 100-125K (incl VAT and office fees). We are now in the process of soliciting contributions from members of the community. Once we hit our monetary goal, the UENL Stichting will move forward with signing the letter of engagement so that the work can begin.

If you are interested to contribute, please review the terms detailed at the survey link below. At the end of the survey, you will find our ING Bank account number for transfer.

Here’s to always remember that #ADealIsADeal

I WISH TO CONTRIBUTE.