Water boards take care of matters such as safe dikes, the treatment of sewage water and the height of the groundwater level. As a resident and company you pay tax for that. Last week, RTL News delved into the proposals that were circulating in the water board boards this spring about the question: how high will those taxes be next year? High, was the answer, they rise between 10 and 35 percent.
The spokesperson for the umbrella body, the Union of Water Boards, says that the intentions about increases are being made per water board and that the proposals are indeed there, but have not yet been adopted. She knows that there are big ambitions and that there will certainly be increases. “The rates for water board taxes differ per water board. One region has sea dykes in the area, while in another region measures have to be taken against the drought.”
According to the spokesman, most water boards will implement an increase of about ten percent and some will only implement the estimated inflation (3 percent). “The increase in water board tax is primarily due to inflation and higher energy, material and salary costs.”
Second, the spokesperson mentions the intensive use of space and water in the Netherlands, in other words: we are a densely populated country. And thirdly, there is the climate factor. “There are longer periods of extreme drought and heavy downpours. We have seen the nuisance of this in Limburg, the river levels were unprecedentedly high.” Someone has to pay for the measures to keep this water problem under control. “If more has to be done, it will cost the citizen more money.”
WOZ value
“Water boards are one of the oldest administrative bodies,” says Hans Andre de la Porte of Eigen Huis. “The Netherlands is built on that.” But the calculation of the water board tax is now also historic, he believes. “It has been tied to the WOZ value of a house for years. And that has increased by 36 percent in the period between 2015 and 2021, last year even seventeen percent.”
But what Andre de la Porte finds indigestible is that the WOZ values of commercial properties hardly increased in value during the same period. “Between 2015 and 2021, the average value has even decreased by two percent. Because the tax rate is the same for everyone, households pay an increasing share of the water board tax every year. There has been no question of a fair distribution of burdens for a long time.”
Flaw
He is not pleased with the announced increase in water board tax in the Amstel, Gooi and Vechtstreek. “There are major organizational problems and due to an ICT debacle they have not been able to collect taxes for a year, so they have had to use their reserves. Everyone living in this area is therefore taxed more than usual.”
How rates are calculated is laid down in law. But how much each user has to pay is up to the water board boards. These are partly fixed and partly political. Such as in the Drents Overijsselse Delta Water Board, where nine BBB board members have been seated since the provincial elections, such as party chairman Jessika van Leeuwen.
She also sees the flaw in the link between the WOZ value of a house and the water board tax. “We would like to restore it, but that must be voted on in 2025.” Van Leeuwen says that in ‘her’ water board alone, 150.6 million euros are involved in costs incurred in 2023 on water matters.
Farmers
“And now there are also cost increases that we have to pass on. The area is urbanizing and we are dealing with more users, but the legal ICT requirements also require investments.” She wants to get rid of the sound that farms have to pay less water board tax than private homeowners.
“Farmers also have a home and exactly the same scheme applies to them, which is linked to the WOZ value of their home.” Its starting point is to have a developed country like the Netherlands score high on the list when it comes to transparency of calculations, but also when it comes to clean water. “Clean water is of great importance for health, and unfortunately that is not free.”