Cabinet: tax authorities will maintain sham constructions from the beginning of 2025 | Financial

The cabinet wants to work ‘step by step’ towards full enforcement, say Minister Karien van Gennip (Social Affairs) and State Secretary Marnix van Rij (Fiscality and Tax Authorities).

This concerns enforcement of the DBA Act, which was introduced in 2016. The law must prevent companies and contractors from taking advantage of the tax advantages associated with independence compared to an employment contract. But enforcement was immediately paused upon implementation during the ‘implementation period’, which was continuously extended.

The tax authorities have been able to intervene in the event of malicious intent since 2018, and since January 2020 they have the option to issue an ‘instruction’. But this hardly ever happens, according to a recent report from the Court of Audit.

The lifting of the so-called ‘moratorium’ is a promise from the coalition agreement, but this is not expected to happen until the end of the government term. By already announcing that the Tax and Customs Administration will certainly check for sham constructions, companies, the self-employed and employees can prepare for this, say Van Gennip and Van Rij.

The cabinet also emphasizes that “there is no single simple solution to the problem of bogus self-employment.” On the one hand, the Tax and Customs Administration implementing organization must be given more resources, but the government also wants ‘a more level playing field for contract types’ in employment law, when it comes to social regulations and tax rules.

Reducing the gap between the employee and the self-employed has been an ambition of the cabinet for some time. Some of the measures for this have already been taken, but a number of proposals will be presented as part of the labor market reform. For example, there will be compulsory disability insurance for all self-employed persons.

In the autumn, the cabinet will provide more information about the step-by-step plan.

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