Tax Authority investigating how many others use Heineken-construction for tax avoidance

The Tax Authority will investigate how many people use the same tax construction as Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken to avoid paying taxes in the Netherlands, outgoing State Secretary Marnix van Rij of Finance told the Tweede Kamer, NOS reports.

On Thursday, it was revealed that De Carvalho-Heineken - the richest person in the Netherlands - has hardly paid any tax for years. Every year, she receives hundreds of millions of euros in profit distributions from her shares in Heineken and funnels that money via Luxembourg to the tax haven of Jersey, NRC revealed.

The Heineken heiress should have paid a 25.8 percent tax on her profits that went from the Netherlands to Luxembourg. Carvalho-Heineken avoided that by her Dutch company not paying profits to her Luxembourg company but repaying share capital. As a result, around 130 million euros reached Jersey tax-free at the end of December.

During a parliamentary debate on Thursday, Van Rij stressed that the Netherlands implemented an anti-abuse measure, which has also applied to dividends since January 1. “If it turns out that this measure is being circumvented by using a legal option, then we will have to seriously consider whether we should come up with anty-abuse legislation after all,” Van Rij told the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of the Dutch parliament.

He will ask the Tax Authority to investigate whether other people are using the same construction. If that turns out to be the case, the government will consider new legislation to close this route.