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| Photo: Joep Poulssen |
New tax minister Menno Snel has given the order for 4,000 advance
tax rulings made between the Netherlands and foreign firms to be re-examined,
following the news that one major deal with Procter & Gamble did not meet
the regulations.
On Tuesday, Trouw reported that an agreement with P&G,
which allowed the company to shift $676m untaxed to the Cayman Islands, had
been signed off by a single tax inspector in Rotterdam, in contravention of the
rules.
Snel told MPs in a briefing on Wednesday that the P&G deal is
‘unacceptable’ and that he has instructed senior officials to make sure the
rules are adhered to from now on. The results of the probe into existing deals
dating from 2012 will be published early next year.
Tuesday’s new claims about
tax avoidance resulting from the Paradise Papers were also raised at Tuesday’s
meeting of finance ministers in Brussels, the first to be attended by new
finance minister Wopke Hoekstra.
Phase out
According to the Financieele
Dagblad, Europe’s tax commissioner Pierre Moscovici asked Hoekstra to immediately
suspend the use of the corporate construction which has allowed Nike to slash
its tax bill. EU legislation will phase out the use of CVs, or limited
partnerships, in 2020, but there is no reason not to take action now, Moscovici
is quoted as saying.
The FD said Hoekstra had made it clear that the
Netherlands ‘has changed course’. ‘I explicitly said that the Netherlands wants
to be part of the solution,’ the paper quotes the new minister as saying.
Blacklist
EU ministers plan to publish a blacklist of countries which
facilitate tax avoidance in December. Trouw said the latest revelations had led
to a heated debate in Germany about the Netherlands, with journalists wondering
what the country actually has to gain by its liberal attitude to tax deals.
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