Preparing for Legal Efforts, Part 9

IMPORTANT UPDATE - REQUIRES YOUR ACTION

Update from Legal Team

The legal team has been spending a lot of time to come to a practical solution with the tax authorities in an effort to reduce the administrative burden for all participants. Up until this week, the tax authorities were not willing to accept any proposal. Our team has continued to urge the tax authorities to agree with an approach that is efficient for all parties involved. We are very happy to tell that these efforts seem to be rewarded now…

Yesterday, the tax authorities have agreed to start negotiations to come to an agreement. If an agreement will be reached, no monthly letters have to be sent anymore. It remains a requirement that - for all of you  at least one complete letter of contest will be handled by the tax authorities, so pending requests for information still have to be answered (the legal team will assist you). However, invitations for hearings, etc will no longer have to be answered. 

IMPORTANT STEP

It is extremely important that you can only benefit from this agreement with the tax authorities if you have allowed our legal team to act on your behalf. We therefore advise you to:

• Open the Word document

• Personalize the document by replacing NAAM with your name, ADRES with your private address and xxxx.xx.xxx with your BSN

• Print the personalized document

• Sign and date the printed document

• Scan or make a photo of the signed document (you can use a free downloadable scanning app)

• Send the scan or photo to the legal team at unitedexpats@taxperience.nl.

• When sending the signed power of attorney, please also mention in your email if there are any pending requests for information. If so, please include or attach the latest correspondence. The legal team will inform you if and how you have to respond

For now, as we work to come to an agreement with the tax authorities, it is important that you continue to file the monthly letters of contest. So, please make sure to do so. The legal team will remain in touch with the tax authorities to make sure that next steps can be taken on short notice. They will do their utmost to come to an agreement as soon as possible,

Preparing for Legal Efforts, Part 8

Update from Legal Team AND Draft Response to Letters from Tax Authorities

Update

The legal team is still trying to come to a practical solution with the tax authorities in an effort to reduce the administrative burden for all participants. Up to now, the tax authorities did not respond to their latest proposal. Our team will continue to urge the tax authorities to agree with an approach that is efficient for all parties involved. In the meantime, the tax authorities have continued to process the letters of contest and have sent letters to several participants, in which they:

• Ask for more information, for instance a copy of the addendum in which the application of the 30%-ruling has been agreed between the participant and the employer;

• Ask for information about the amount of wage tax that the participant has paid as a result of no longer applying the 30%-ruling;

• Ask to make an appointment for a hearing;

• Ask for approval to discuss multiple letters of contest during one hearing;

• Announce to reject the letter of contest since it was not filed in time;

• Announce that they are planning to reject the letter of contest.

In all of the response letters from the Dutch tax authorities. an email address is mentioned of the person at the tax authorities that is handling the case.

The legal team suggests to respond to all these letters with the same email, of which the Dutch text is included below. The email is asking the tax authorities not to handle your case before we have a final decision of the tax court for the three test cases that the legal team will present to the court in Haarlem.

*Please note: you only have to send this email in case you received a letter asking for more information. You will most likely also have received letters in which the tax authorities simply confirmed the receipt of your letter of contest. These letters are sent from the tax office in Breda (Centrale administratieve processen) and do not contain an emailaddress of the person handling your case. You do not have to respond to these letters

Draft Response Letter

Geachte heer/mevrouw,

Naar aanleiding van uw verzoek om nadere informatie en/of het inplannen van een hoorgesprek met betrekking tot de door mij ingediende bezwaarschriften tegen de inhouding van loonheffing in verband met de verkorting van de looptijd van de aan mij toegekende 30%-bewijsregel, verzoek ik u vriendelijk om mijn bezwaarschrift aan te houden en pas af te handelen nadat er een onherroepelijk vaststaande rechtelijke uitspraak is in de drie vergelijkbare zaken die door Taxperience NV aan de rechtbank Noord-Holland zijn voorgelegd.

Meer informatie hierover kunt u verkrijgen bij uw collega Carola Opmeer-Bekkers van de Belastingdienst Grote Ondernemingen Arnhem of via unitedexpats@taxperience.nl.

Met vriendelijke groet,

YOUR NAME and YOUR BSN

Note About Sending Response

• If you have a scanner available we suggest to attach a copy of the letter to which you respond to your email (this is not required, but will help the tax authorities to process your response). You can download a free scanner app for your smartphone.

• We also suggest you to send a copy of your email to unitedexpats@taxperience.nl

• If you received multiple letters from the Dutch tax authorities the legal team advises to respond to each letter separately, so to send multiple emails to the tax authorities

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Preparing for Legal Efforts, Part 7

Some Good News!

This week our litigation team received the first decisions of the tax authorities on the letters of contest that were filed on behalf of the three participants in our litigation process. Decisions have been received for the months January and February. As expected the Dutch tax authorities rejected our letters of contest. However, the good news is that the legal team can now proceed to present our three cases to the tax court of Haarlem.

First battle won!

Extremely good news is the fact that the Dutch tax authorities have acknowledged that we are eligible to object and to present our cases to the tax court. As you may recall, the tax authorities initially argued that an employee would not be allowed to contest the application of the 30%-ruling. We are very happy that we (and the legal team) did not accept this point of view and started the legal process anyway. As a result the first battle is won by us!

Next step is that we have to present our three cases to the tax court in Haarlem. The legal team have 6 weeks to file letters of appeal to the tax court. They aim to prepare and file these letters as soon as possible. After receipt of the letters the court will ask the tax authorities for their opinion and after receipt of that response a court hearing will take place.

What can you expect from the tax authorities?

The legal team will contact the tax authorities to get a clear picture of how they will proceed with all other letters of contest. We expect that you will receive a letter (one for each month you sent a letter of objection) in which the tax authorities announce the rejection of your objection. In this letter they will provide an opportunity for you to respond and to ask for a hearing. We will make sure to provide timely guidance how to best respond to this letter.

We will update you on this as soon as we have more clarity and certainty from the tax authorities. In the meantime please continue to share (as you have been doing!) any correspondence that you receive from the tax authorities with the legal team by sending scanned copies to unitedexpats@taxperience.nl

Finally

As mentioned before, we have won an important first battle. However, this only relates to a formal aspect. Therefore it is not an indication that we will win this process. Any litigation process is long and requires patience and endurance. We encourage you to keep filing monthly letters of contest during the process. Let’s make sure we will win the next battles too! #StepByStep