Quote (balrog66 @ Apr 25 2018 10:03am)
There's quite the interesting news in our country this week.
For some time there has been controversy over the removal of the dividend tax. This dividend tax is deductable for Dutch citizens/companies, so the end result is that the Dutch government is only benefiting foreign investors. Meanwhile rumors started appearing on where this policy came from. None of the coalition parties had it as part of their party programme during campaigns, and the Prime Minister was exceedingly vague about it all. The rumor was that Dutch multinationals Unilever and Shell threatened to move their HQ abroad if the dividend tax stayed.
Revenue from the dividend tax was a healthy 1.5 billion Euro.
The argument for the removal of dividend tax by ruling party VVD was that it is not compatible with EU law (all EU citizens deserve equal tax treatment in any country). However, dividend taxes are present in nearly every EU nation.
Now memo's have surfaced of the talks that preceded the decision to repeal the dividend tax. Now there is confirmation that the VVD actively sought out consent and policy ideas from the multinationals whilst disregarding advice from staffers of the Finance ministry, who were sure that it would negatively impact the Dutch citizen. This is definitely going to rub people the wrong way. After the financial crisis, lots of people had to tighten their belts and tough it out with unemployment or lower wages. Now that the economy has recovered somewhat, the ruling party just hands out a huge gift to foreign investors, with no benefit to the Dutch citizens who suffered.
There are decent odds that a vote of no confidence is going to be done against the current coalition. Not very likely to pass, but this incident is going to put the already strained relationship in the coalition of the more left leaning parties (CU/D66) with the right leaning parties (VVD/CDA) in rough waters. Adding to this that there is only a 1 seat majority in parliament, there is decent odds of this coalition failing within the next year.
And if there is hard proof of the (Prime) Minister(s) colluding with these multinationals, they will have to resign to save their party's face. People are pretty harsh on corruption here.
Yeah it is interesting how right wing parties are making life better for the top 1%. The VVD has been ruling our country for quite long enough imo. It is the most corrupt party in a country with nearly no corruption. (most scandals and dismissed ministers come from the VVD.)
On a side note, the most important country that does not have a dividend tax as well is the UK. Removing the dividend tax is leveling out the playing field effecting commissioners, who decide upon the location of their HQ post Brexit. (for foreigners: this was relevant because Unilever, partially Dutch/Brittish had two HQ's, one in the UK, one in the Netherlands, it was more vulnerable for takeovers (an American company almost succeeded) and was running less efficient because of it, so they've been working towards removing one of them just before the tax was removed.) It is in effect creating few jobs in our country, or perhaps it's better to say: stealing a few jobs from across the pond. But in no way it will create enough, to justify the loss of 1.3-1.5 bil from taxes on mostly the 1%. I'm looking forward to the release of memo's which are defined as "confidential" by Rutte. Whom, should have been more open and transparent about the issue in the recent past. The debates working towards a possible vote of no confidence will at the very least give the transparency ppl want at this time.
/e: I'm also wondering what part Shell has played, is the changing attitude towards Groningen related? as being part of a deal ? (That's conspiracy for now ^)
This post was edited by Knoppie on Apr 25 2018 03:59pm