For the time being, the tax authorities will not impose taxes on assets in box 3. The Supreme Court ruled at the end of December that taxation of assets is in conflict with European law. In an interview with BNR Nieuwsradio Peter Kavelaars, Professor of Economics at Erasmus School of Economics, explains why this decision was taken.
According to the Supreme Court, the wealth tax violates the right of ownership and the prohibition of discrimination. 'This is because the taxpayers who are taxed in box 3 are levied far too much income tax compared to the actual return achieved. That is already unfair, but there are also large differences between taxpayers depending on where their assets come from.’ Kavelaars explains that some people derive a large part of their assets from shares, while for others it is mainly savings.
Until 2017, the effective return was 4%, but from 2017 it was said that people who have more assets generally invest more riskily, which leads to a higher return and so you can also tax on the basis of a higher return. According to the Supreme Court, this can certainly be the case, but of course this is not the case for everyone. There are also many people who have a lot of assets but who do not invest with high risk at all. A lot of citizens therefore lodged an objection that, because of the rule of the Supreme court, has now been approved. For citizens who have not lodged an objection, it is somewhat more difficult. Formally, they have no possibility to get their money back, but when an old tax assessment has not yet been imposed, they can still object.
As a result of the Supreme Court decision, the tax authorities can no longer send out any tax assessments to wealthy individuals until the coalition agrees on an adjustment to this tax. Stopping the tax in box 3 would cost the treasury about 4 billion euros per year.
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The full item from BNR Nieuwsradio (from 6 minutes), 24 January 2022, can be found here (in Dutch).