Mohamed Baba, chairman of the board of the Haag Wonen corporation with more than 21,000 homes, says that abolishing the tax will immediately give the corporation room to build more than a hundred homes per year. “The money is now deducted from the resources that a corporation has to play a role in the housing crisis. And the task is so great.”
Aedes, the association of housing associations, wants the levy to disappear so that more houses can be built and made more sustainable. “This tax on social rental housing hinders corporations in their core task, which is public housing.” Aedes has been against the levy since its introduction.
Shortage of 24 billion
Research by the Ministry of the Interior showed last year that housing associations will be short of 24 billion euros in 2035 if the current policy is continued. In the coming years, the corporations will be able to draw on their equity, but from 2024 the first corporations would run into financial difficulties.
Professor Boelhouwer: “It is clear that corporations will lack money in the future. They face major challenges. They have to moderate rents, make them more sustainable and build new houses. All of this must be financed.”
In a debate this summer said Minister Ollongren, responsible for housing, that the landlord levy for housing associations is no longer tenable. “Their investment space is being eroded.” She felt that something had to change in the short term.
Change?
The argument for the levy is that it prevents a gap in the budget. Otherwise, the lost income will have to be obtained from elsewhere. Moreover, the VVD was the only party in the election program to hold on to the levy and that party became the largest in the elections.
Nevertheless, the party is now willing to negotiate, although the VVD’s complete scrapping of the landlord levy still goes too far. In any case, it seems that the charge will be adjusted. How and to what extent this will happen is still uncertain.
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