More Haste Less Speed

Because the previous government made mistakes, by making too quickly decisions to reduce the export of benefits to countries like Morocco, now leads to a significant setback to the budget of the current government. This means that Minister Lodewijk Asscher of Social Affairs has to transfer 300 million euro, plus interest, to abroad. This is the conclusion of Lodewijk Asscher himself, after losing a couple of lawsuits. He is going to pay now because he thinks that if he will appeal, the damage will be more. It is all about the restriction to export a bonus for older tax payers. That bonus was meant as a compensation for the Dutch tax changes. It was a compensation for elderly people to prevent that they would suffer too much from these changes. Former minister of Social Affairs, Henk Kamp, decided in 2011 that older people who pay tax over less than 90 percent in the Netherlands, would not get this bonus. He calculated that this would save 120 million euro. People who were affected by this decision, however, made a lawsuit in the years that followed and they were successful. According to the judges this is part of European laws and rules and these benefits should also be paid to people who don’t pay tax in the Netherlands. Asscher can in fact go to the European judge to fight the outcome but the chance is ‘very possible’ that the European judge will decide the same. This is something he doesn’t want to risk. The people who didn’t get the bonus will be paid from the first of June 2011 till now plus the interest. This is a sum of 300 million euro.