Cabinet formation round enters final day with deal to drop 15% share buyback tax
PVV leader Geert Wilders was very optimistic when he entered the final day of this government formation phase. If the PVV, VVD, NSC, and BBB conclude a government agreement, this will be a “historic day,” he said. Part of that deal is to scrap the 15 percent tax on share buybacks that the Netherlands implemented last year, sources told Bloomberg.
The formation leaders’ deadline to submit their final report on this round of formation talks to parliament is tonight. That means that the four parties have to conclude an agreement, and their factions have to approve it, before the day is out.
“It would be good news if it works, and I assume that it will,” Wilders told reporters on his way into the last day of negotiations, NOS reports. “I slept for two hours, the adrenaline is going through your body a bit. If it works, it will be a historic day. Participating in a Cabinet as the largest party, you can only dream of that as the leader of a party and it is good for our voters.”
NSC leader Pieter Omtzigt was also optimistic, though he said that he still had one sheet of changes for the financial chapter. He, too, assumes they’ll conclude an agreement today and is already looking forward to searching for Ministers. “We will have an extra-parliamentary Cabinet and that is a major break from the Cabinet of recent years,” he said.
Omtzigt cherished the idea of an extra-parliamentary Cabinet. In such a Cabinet, Ministers don’t have to be politicians from the coalition parties but can also be experts from the field. “In the coming weeks, it will be important to see who the Ministers will be. That they are skilled people who understand their field—healthcare, education, what should happen next with Schiphol and road construction,” for example,” Omtzigt said.
According to Bloomberg’s sources, the four right-wing parties are taking a step back from their plans to reduce the number of expats coming to the country. They’ve agreed to scrap the 15 percent tax on share buybacks - one of the big threats to international businesses often mentioned in the same breath as the deteriorating business climate in the country. They also want to reverse a previous plan to reduce tax cuts for expats.
