News item | 04-11-2022 | 16:14
The cabinet says that all non-objectioners can claim a new Supreme Court ruling, should the Supreme Court (HR) rule in favor of taxpayers in a new procedure. Non-objectioners with box 3 income for the years 2017-2020 do not need to submit a request for this. This new procedure concerns the question of whether non-objectors (just like objectors) are eligible for restoration of rights. Process agreements are made with interest groups about these procedures for non-objectioners. The government undertakes this to ensure that the procedures and handling of requests run as efficiently as possible.
Since the ruling of the HR on 20 May, the cabinet has investigated whether and, if so, how it was possible to compensate non-objectioners. In the end, the cabinet decided not to offer compensation to the non-objectioners. Full compensation costs € 4.1 billion, more than half of which would end up with taxpayers with assets in box 3 of more than € 200,000. For the government, the livelihood of people who are already struggling to pay the bills was a priority, which is why it has opted for an extensive purchasing power package. This led to many reactions from the non-objectors, because they consider the cabinet’s decision unjust.
A decision in one go
Submitting and handling these requests is a lot of work, both for taxpayers and tax advisers and for the tax authorities, because each request must be handled individually.
It has been promised that all non-objectioners for the years 2017 to 2020 can claim a ruling from the HR, following the procedure ‘mass objection plus’. This prevents them from having to submit a request after all if the HR rules in favor of the taxpayers in proceedings. Individual non-objectioners therefore do not have to take any action now. The government emphasizes that the HR has clearly stated in its judgment of 20 May that non-objectioners are not entitled to box 3 compensation aimed at restoring rights. The government therefore does not expect that new procedures for non-objectioners will provide a great chance of restoration of rights.
In addition, a so-called “mass objection plus” procedure will be introduced. The introduction of ‘mass objection plus’ makes it possible to take a decision in one go, even for large numbers of requests for official reduction. As a result, not all requests need to be handled individually, which prevents serious disruptive effects on the implementation by the Tax and Customs Administration. The requests already submitted will be kept separate until a decision is made.
Conversations with interest groups
In recent years, constructive consultations have been held with the Taxpayers’ Association, the umbrella organizations for tax advisers and the Consumers’ Association. It emerged from these discussions that they wish to submit the question to the court of whether legal redress should not be offered to all taxpayers after all. One or more cases are selected together with the interest groups and submitted to the tax court. In this way, the judge can provide answers in a structured manner to the questions that still remain with non-objectioners.
In the coming period, further discussions will be held with the interest groups about the cases that will be submitted to the tax court. At the beginning of 2023, the instruction for the ‘mass objection plus’ procedure will be issued.