If the Supreme Court adopts the advice of the Advocate General in the savings tax case – that not only savers but also investors are entitled to a refund – then this will be ‘a hell of a job, from an implementation point of view and from a budgetary point of view’. State Secretary Van Rij said this on Thursday during the general financial considerations in the House of Representatives.
Van Rij informed the House of Representatives last week that the Tax Authorities are preparing for a second recovery operation due to the capital gains tax in income tax. The first recovery followed the Christmas judgment from December 2021. The Supreme Court then canceled the levy. It was based too much on fictitious returns. Van Rij wanted to offer legal redress to savers. But according to Advocate General Peter Wattel of the Supreme Court, this should also apply to investors.
Philippe Albert, professor at Nyenrode Business University and who works at Baker Tilly, says in the Financieele Dagblad that the Advocate General’s position has not surprised him. If the Supreme Court follows the advice, which Albert believes would be correct, the temporary tax on savings and investments will also be legally in doubt, the professor believes. This temporary tax uses the same levy system as the recovery operation. The so-called lump sum savings variant is again based on assumed returns and serves as a bridge until a tax is imposed based on actually achieved capital returns. That won’t happen until 2027 at the earliest.
In the Christmas judgment, the Supreme Court wrote: ‘The benefits that the taxpayer did not enjoy, but could have achieved if he had made his assets available for this purpose, must be excluded from the levy.’ The temporary tax is at odds with this, according to Albert. He calls it a joke that the fixed savings variant approximates the actual return as closely as possible, as the government states. The savings variant is also based on averages, says Albert. ‘These always lead to one half paying too much tax and the other half too little. The Supreme Court has said that this is not allowed in income tax. The conclusion is that the government has ignored the Christmas ruling.’
Source: FD