Dutch big business profited massively from tax relief since 2008

Big businesses in the Netherlands paid significantly less taxes between 2008 and 2017. The so-called tax burden, the tax that large companies actually pay, decreased from 22.9 percent to 17.1 percent in the past year, while the rates have not changed, Statistics Netherlands concluded in a study commissioned by the parliamentary committee on finance. 

The stats office also found that the larger a company is, the lower is its tax burden. Companies with assets between 40 million and 100 million euros paid 20.6 percent profit tax in 2017, for example. While companies with over 500 million euros in assets only paid 16.2 percent. 

A number of political parties believe that this decrease in the corporate tax burden - with the rates staying the same - shows that companies are evading more taxes, NU.nl reports. They therefore call for the planned corporate tax reduction to be scrapped. The reduction is scheduled for 2021, after it was postponed earlier this year. The high corporate tax rate will decrease from 25 percent to 21.7 percent.

But the Ministry of Finance warns that the figures must be carefully interpreted. According to the Ministry, further investigation is needed to determine why one company pays more taxes than the other.