Preparing for Legal Efforts, Part 10

General Summary Update from Legal Team

It is great to receive so many power-of-attorneys from all of you. At this moment, more than 550 expats authorized us to act on their behalf. If you haven’t already, you can download and submit the form from the website under Step 1.

We still do not have an agreement in writing with the tax authorities regarding how we proceed. We are currently waiting on a draft version of this agreement. Once this is in hand, and once the text is agreed to by all parties, we can conclude the agreement (vaststellingsovereenkomst) with the tax authorities. As long as there is no signed agreement, the tax authorities will probably still contact all the expats individually. We (the legal team) are trying to receive a delay to respond to the tax authorities on behalf of everyone who authorized Taxperience to act on their behalf, however, we still have no official answer.

For now, please make sure to continue to file monthly letters of contest. As long as we don’t have a practical agreement with the tax authorities, this will still be needed and timely filing of these letters remains your personal responsibility.

We are receiving a huge amount of mails from the community, and as a result, are not able to answer all of these individual mails. Please read this FAQ to find an answer to one of your questions. Any updates will follow via the community website. Please contact Jessica if you have an urgent question which has not been answered in the FAQ.

Frequently Asked Questions (9 August 2021)

1.     Did Taxperience receive my power of attorney (POA)? The people who have sent there power of attorney prior to 4 August received a confirmation mail by unitedexpats@taxperience.nl, once there POA has been processed and included in our list. We will share this list on a regular basis with our contact person at the tax authorities. The people who sent their POA last week, will receive a confirmation as soon as the POA has been processed. If you don’t receive a confirmation within one week, please resend your POA.

2.     The tax authorities are asking questions and would like to schedule a hoorgesprek, what should I do? The legal team is trying to receive a delay to respond to the tax authorities on behalf of everyone who authorized Taxperience to act on their behalf, however we still have no official answer. Please send the power of attorney to the tax authorities, so the individual tax inspector is aware of the fact that Taxperience is authorized to act on your behalf. We suggest asking for an 8-week delay yourself because of the holiday season to answer the questions of the tax inspector and/or to schedule a hearing. Please make sure that the tax authorities have all the other information they asked to provide, for example: employment agreement, addendum for the 30% ruling, evidence regarding date of salary payment, proof that your letter has been sent in time, etc. You can send the following message to the tax inspector:

Geachte heer, mevrouw,

Taxperience is namens alle gemachtigden van Stichting United Expats (waaronder ik) momenteel in overleg om met de Belastingdienst tot een vaststellingsovereenkomst te komen. Zij hebben hierover overleg met uw collega Carola Opmeer-Bekkers van de Belastingdienst Grote Ondernemingen Arnhem. In de bijlage treft u mijn machtiging aan.

Daarnaast verzoek ik u om uitstel tot een reactie voor een periode van 8 weken in verband met de vakantieperiode.

Met vriendelijke groet,

NAME and BSN

 3.     The tax authorities are not willing to extend the response time, what should I do? Please keep pushing that you are not able to answer the questions due to the holiday season and that you will respond after 8 weeks. During your holiday, you are not able to have a hearing / conversation with the tax authorities even though they suggest the option to schedule this online via WebeX as you are not bringing your laptop or mobile phone during your well-deserved break. Besides that, you also require assistance with this meeting from an expert.

 4.     I received an official rejection of my objection letter due to the fact that it has been filed too late, what should I do? If you haven’t sent your objection letter within 6 weeks after receiving your salary slip or salary payment, the objection letter has probably been filed too late. If the letter has been sent too late, you are not able to object anymore. Your letter will be considered too late. You are not able to profit from the court case outcome for this specific month. (other months sent on time are still eligible)

If you sent the letter in time, but the tax authorities haven’t received the letter within the 6-week period, please make sure that you sent evidence to the tax authorities that you posted the letter in time. Make sure that you can prove the posting of the letter.

Please make sure that you keep filing monthly objection letters in time! For the months that have been filed in time, you might be able to profit from the court case outcome.

 5.     I received an official rejection of my objection letter due to the fact that I switched between employers as of 2019. What should I do? The tax authorities rejected every objection letter, whereby an employee switched between employers and already received a ‘new’ 30% ruling with an adjusted duration period. This is based on their argument that the employee should have objected to the new 30% ruling.

As a result of this, the legal team is taking a fourth case to court related to the switch between employers as of 2019. They are currently preparing the objection letter. Please note that this objection letter should be filed within 6 weeks at the tax court! At this moment, the legal team is aware that letters regarding the rejection have been issued after 12 July 2021 (definitieve afwijzing bezwaarschrift).

The people who are affected should be keeping a close watch on the updates via the website! We currently have a small list of people who are affected, they will receive a short mail at the end of this week, that we are aware of the fact that they received an official rejection letter. This week the legal team will also reach out to a few individuals to check if they are willing to act as our court case.

Next week the legal team will prepare an update and send the people on their list a mail with instructions. If you haven’t heard anything at the end of next week, and you are affected and reaching your 6 weeks deadline, please contact us. Because it is a very tight deadline, we are afraid that the deadline to file an appeal with the tax court expires before we come to an agreement with the tax authorities. Therefore, we expect that every single individual in this specific situation needs to file an objection letter with the tax court and pay the corresponding court fees (€ 49 per objection letter).

6. I am switching between employers as of 2019. What should I do? Please make sure that you file an application for a new 30% ruling together with your new employer and make sure that there is an addendum in place. The view of the tax authorities is that after receipt of the new 30% ruling, with a shortened duration due to the new legislation, you should file an objection letter within 6 weeks after the date of the ruling. You should contest the duration of the 30% ruling. Please note that Taxperience does not assist in this process. This is a separate process.

If you already used the 30% ruling for five years, and the tax authorities did not send you a new 30% ruling but a rejection for the 30% ruling, you should contest this decision as well within 6 weeks after the date of the rejection. Please note that Taxperience does not assist in this process. This is a separate process.

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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