Affected by the 30% Rule Changes? Take these Steps Today.

IMPORTANT: the final month to start participating is by sending a letter of contest for salary received in December 2023.

UENL Stichting has hired Taxperience to challenge this legal decision in court. Six representative cases will be taken to court (in process). In the meanwhile, individuals affected by the 30-Rule legislation can still join our efforts to get justice done. After working on this for over one and a half year, Taxperience has concluded an agreement with the Belastingdienst whereby all individuals who have signed a power-of-attorney letter with Taxperience and who have filed at least one timely and complete letter of contest will be represented by any decisions from the court cases. If you want to join us, it is therefore critical to the steps on this page.

This page was updated on 16 December 2023.

Disclaimer. We can guarantee that there are a team of sharp and responsible legal minds helping us think through this process, and we are doing our very best. However and unfortunately, nobody can predict the outcome. This legal battle is very complex and leaves us with many unknowns. While we were expecting a strong push back from the tax authority, we would not have expected this inflexible attitude towards reaching a practical solution, given how heavily impacted the affected individuals are. It might very well be possible that at the end of the day no practical solution is available and we become entangled in a tedious and potentially unsuccessful litigation against the Tax Authority. We want to be extremely clear and transparent, carefully managing the expectations of this community.

Step 1: Power of Attorney

Only in case you are legally represented by Taxperience you can participate in our action. It is therefore critical to download the power of attorney document and to complete this. After completing it with your personal information, please date and sign the document. Please note that the tax authorities require a handwritten signature on this document, so no electronic signatures are accepted. The template power of attorney document can be found here: Power of Attorney Form

• 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 (please note that your signature should be handwritten, so please don’t use any electronic signature or DocuSign as the tax authorities require a handwritten signature).

• 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.

Step 2: Find the Relevant Information

In order to participate in our action you have to prepare and send a letter to the Dutch tax authorities. You have to enclose several documents when sending this letter. Before preparing the letter, please make sure that the following information is available:

• Copy of your salary slip of the month you are objecting

• Copy of your 30% ruling

• Signed power of attorney (step 1)

• The agreement between your employer and you to apply the 30%-ruling (addendum, see below)

The addendum is the agreement that allows your employer to split your salary into 70 percent taxable and 30 percent tax free so that your gross salary is lowered by 30 percent. You both needed to sign a document, whereby you fully understand the consequences of this 30% reduction. The tax authorities want to check that you agreed to apply the 30% rule and lower the gross salary. In most cases this agreement has been included in a separate document, however, some employers included it in your employment agreement.

If you don’t have an original addendum we advise you to prepare one now. The template that can be found here: Template Addendum Via this addendum, the prior verbal agreements and application in the payroll are recorded on paper now. Please request your employer to sign this document. (Also see FAQ for more details).

Step 3: Prepare One Letter of Contest

IMPORTANT: the final month to start participating is by sending a letter of contest for salary received in December 2023.

Normally you would have to file a letter of contest to the Dutch tax authorities for each month in which the 30%-ruling has not been applied anymore. For most people this would mean they have to file 36 letters of contest. However, our legal team has been able to come to a practical agreement with the tax authorities which allows you to just file one letter of contest. This letter should meet certain requirements, so please make sure to read the below instructions carefully.

We have prepared a template objection letter for you that can be found here. This objection letter does not contain legal arguments explaining WHY you are objecting. Taxperience will take care of this on your behalf. Please note that no legal fees are due when sending this letter to the Dutch tax authorities. You can only send the letter after receipt of your salary for the month and the letter should be send within 6 weeks after you received your salary. When using the letter, please make sure to replace the text in green. Please follow the instructions on the first page carefully and make sure to include a dated power of attorney (we refer to step 1).

Step 4: Send Letter of Contest to Tax Authorities AND Taxperience

After preparing the letter of contest, please make sure to send it to the tax authorities within 6 weeks after you received your net salary. The municipality where you live determines to which office of the tax authorities you have to send your letter. You should only send the letter of contest and the signed power of attorney to the tax authorities. For the correct mailing address, please click here.  You only have to send one letter of contest. Please make sure to send to the Tax Authorities and Taxperience (unitedexpats@taxperience.nl) the following information, and be sure to keep a copy of the provided information for your own files:

1. a copy of the letter of contest,

2. the signed power of attorney,

3. a copy of the salary slip,

4. the signed addendum and

5. a copy of your 30%-ruling

If Taxperience does not receive complete information, you cannot participate in our action. With complete information we mean complete information. If any item is missing, you will not be able to particpate.

Step 5: Keep Copies of Salary Slips

After filing one timely and complete letter of contest, you can participate in our action which means that you don’t have to send letters of contest for future months. However, in case we win this legal battle, the tax authorities will ask you what the financial impact of the reduction of the application period of the 30%-ruling is in your specific case. You then should be able to show your salary slips. We therefore urge you to make sure that you will have access to copies of your salary slips for all months that are affected by this issue.

UENL post updates as to our status, our efforts, and other related information via our Google Group. We also post relevant updates right under the UPDATES section of our website. As the legal process is slow, these updates may also be slow. We will share information when it is known.

Please note that while both Taxperience and UENL maintain an inbox, the influx of messages makes it difficult to respond personally. Instead, we put out FAQ updates as necessary to cover the majority of requests.