On December 15, 2021, a roadmap for the new Dutch coalition was published, including new tax innovations that are relevant to corporate taxpayers.
Coalition parties are proposing amendments to the law on so-called "controlled foreign companies" (CFC) in accordance with the recommendations of the advisory committee on taxation of multinational corporations. Under the current CFC regime, the income of organizations in some low tax countries is included in the taxable income of the NetherlandsNetherlands. In 2020, an advisory committee proposed to tighten the current CFC regime, for example, by removing the current temporary profit distribution exemption, narrowing down the notion of “real economic activity”.
The new coalition also announced that it plans to implement the OECD proposal for Pilar II, as agreed by most countries. Pilar II involves the introduction of a minimum corporate tax rate and, as a result, the definition of uniform rules for calculating such a tax for an international group of companies (MGK). These rules are called "GloBE Rules". The minimum income tax rate for MGK under the GloBE Rules will be 15%. It is also expected to raise the minimum withholding tax rate to 9% for certain payments made under bilateral tax agreements.
The coalition agreement states that in the event that adjustments to the CFC rules, as well as the implementation of Pilar II, do not bring sufficient tax revenues, other ways will be considered to expand the corporate tax base. Other measures could include changing the low corporate income tax rate (15% from 2022) and income tax (the low rate will apply to profits up to € 395,000 from 2022).
