Tax evasion costs Dutch government billions: Union

The Dutch government loses out on billions of euros due to Dutch companies evading their taxes, according to union FNV, based on a study by SOMO, a foundation that investigates multinational companies, ANP reports SOMO investigated 151 large companies based in the Netherlands - 58 of the biggest Dutch family companies and corporations. and 93 large listed companies. The researchers studied annual figures, figures from the Dutch Chamber of Commerce and numerous databases, including those of Statistics Netherlands, Orbis and Datastream. According to the union, the Dutch treasury missed out on at least 15 billion euros. And foreign governments together also received 15 billion euros less on partner-tax than could be expected. Companies use all kinds of devious routes to get their corporate income tax down, according to FNV. For example, they use internal loans between parent and subsidiary companies, shelf companies in tax havens and stall their assets in Belgium. The union believes that the actual tax evasion damage may in fact be much higher, stressing that only part of the companies in the Netherlands were investigated. "If you include the total business life, you are talking about a lot more money", Leo Hartveld said. "Every penny companies make in additional profit this way is in fact theft from society."