An unpleasant surprise for the Emmer-Compascuum Funeral Association. The association recently received an assessment of 650,000 euros from the municipality of Emmen. And that hits home for the association, because the municipality exempted funeral associations from Real Estate Tax (OZB) until 2022.
“We were in no way prepared for this levy,” says Hans Bloemsma, chairman of the funeral association. The association, which runs on volunteers, uses auditoriums in the municipality of Emmen and until recently did not have to pay for them.
The auditoriums used by the association have been in the possession of the funeral association since 1990, which was able to take them over for the symbolic amount of one euro. “The municipality no longer wanted to take care of the maintenance and operation of these auditoriums,” says Bloemsma.
The fact that payment now suddenly has to be made causes disbelief and anger among the chairman. “No one has done anything there in the past three weeks, those auditoriums are just empty.”
It remains to be seen what the municipality will do next. “We had a conversation with the municipality two years ago and they were going to come back to this, but that has not yet happened. In any case, I will not let this go, just like several other associations, because this just hurts us.”