The Tax and Customs Administration will only start issuing fines from October 2021 to companies that allow self-employed persons to do work that actually requires an employment contract. This was to be started early next year, but Minister Wouter Koolmees (Social Affairs and Employment) informed the House of Representatives on Monday that further experiments should be carried out first with a kind of manual for clients.
Fines may no longer be imposed, the minister warns. Incidentally, the Social Affairs and Employment Inspectorate (formerly the Labor Inspectorate) and the Tax and Customs Administration check for this type of sham constructions, but fines and corrections are not yet forthcoming in most cases.
A web module will be tested for six months from January. Clients then have to fill in questions. This questionnaire must clarify whether the work must be carried out by an employee or whether a self-employed person without personnel (self-employed person) can also do it.
Clients who complete the questionnaire in the coming months are not legally bound by the outcome, Koolmees explains. The module will be evaluated after the test. The enforcement of sham constructions is built up after the evaluation, from 1 October at the earliest.
Before the Tax and Customs Administration starts enforcement, Koolmees also wants to conduct a “broad social discussion” about any problems that employers, clients and the self-employed encounter. With that conversation he also wants to underline the importance of the rules.
The discussion is expected to take place with interest groups of employers and entrepreneurs, but the minister also prefers “sector-oriented discussions”.
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