Gov't doesn't have to compensate saving tax victims who complained late: Supreme Court

The government does not have to compensate savers who did not lodge a complaint with the Tax Authority in time for the too-high savings tax they paid in recent years, the Supreme Court ruled on Friday. The Netherlands' highest court ruled against the saver who filed the case, NOS reports.

The court cannot compel the Tax Authority to reduce the levy for people who did not object to it in time, the Supreme Court said. The ruling could affect hundreds of thousands of savers.

The problem with the savings tax lay in the Tax Authority using a fictitious return to calculate tax. But because interest on savings was historically low in the past years, sometimes even dipping into negative interest, savers paid taxes on returns they never received.

Earlier this month, the Cabinet announced that it set aside 2.8 billion euros to compensate the about 60,000 savers who objected to the excessive taxes on their savings between 2017 and 2020. They'll automatically receive the compensation by August 4. But the question that remained was what would happen to the hundreds of thousands of savers who did not object to the savings tax but still paid taxes on returns they never actually received.

Responsible State Secretary Marnix van Rij of Finance previously said that the government's decision on whether also to compensate people who did not object to the savings tax would be based on this ruling. The ruling likely means that the billions of euros in compensation the government expected to pay will be a deal lower. The government previously estimated that this compensation operation could cost 11.7 billion euros, depending on its structure.