Dozens of MPs don't report their ancillary income
Dozens of parliamentarians have failed to declare their additional income on time, despite being legally obliged to do so since 1990. This year 50 parliamentarians have missed the deadline to report their ancillary earnings. Three of them are party leaders, BNR reports based on internal documents from the Tweede Kamer’s HR staff received through an appeal to the Open Government Act.
Ninety former and current parliamentarians missed the April 1 deadline to report their additional earnings to the Tax Authority, but 40 eventually turned in their reports late. The Tweede Kamer, the lower house of the Dutch parliament, consists of 150 parliamentarians.
Parliamentarians who earn more than 14 percent of their salary (around 17,000 euros) are cut back on the money they receive for their work as MPs. The law calls that “indemnification.” That cut can be up to 35 percent of the remuneration - over 40,000 euros per year. MPs can also choose not to submit a report and take the maximum reduction in their salary.
Three of the 40 MPs who submitted their reports late this year had their salary cut. Many MPs have not reported their income for years. Fifteen MPs and former MPs still haven’t declared their income for 2020. At least one has not submitted anything about 2018.
Integrity professor Rob van Eijbergen spoke of “bizarrely high numbers” of parliamentarians who still fail to follow this law and report their income. “Especially when you consider how much has already been said and written about this. You would expect MPs to abide by the rules,” he said to the broadcaster.
The Tweede Kamer did not reveal the names of the MPs who haven’t reported their ancillary income. Though, in October, the Kamer suspended FvD leader Thierry Baudet for not doing so and reprimanded FvD MPs Freek Jansen and Gideon van Meijeren for the same reason.
