Lower House passes 2021 Tax Plan package

The Lower House of the Dutch Parliament has passed the various Bills as per the 2021 Tax Plan as well as ratifying the proposed liquidation cum cessation losses (limitation) scheme. The vote on the 2021 Tax Plan involved several amendments being passed.

• A change has been made to the Job Related Investment Discount (Dutch abbreviation: BIK) scheme to 3.9 percent (up from 3 percent originally) for investment amounts of up to 5 million euros each, with the discount for the excess – if any – having been trimmed from 2.44 to 1.8 percent.
• A one-off increase in gift tax exemption for children and other beneficiaries in the amount of 1,000 euros each is being introduced for 2021, thus pushing up the aggregate gift tax exemption for 2021 to 6,604 euros per child against 3,244 euros per beneficiary not being a child of the gifting party.
• Parents are being awarded entitlement to child care benefit payments where their life partner has had a custodial sentence or measure imposed of three months or longer (the original draft legislation having involved a twelve-month term or longer).
• The efficiency minimum as per the proposed Feasibility of Benefits (Enhancement) legislation – below which the Tax and Customs Administration will refrain from reclaiming excess benefits from the recipients thereof – has been increased from 48 to 98 euros each. The funding thereof is being seen to by increasing the health care benefit threshold income rates by three hundredths (0.03) of a percentage point.
• Collective housing groups will be spared the increase in stamp duty land tax at next year’s higher 8 percent rate (up from its current level of 2 percent) where they source the property, or properties, in question from one or more housing corporations.
• With effect from the first of April 2021 a price cap of 400,000 euros each has been bolted on as a supplementary criterion to the stamp duty land tax exemption scheme for first-time home owners (to be). An extra anti-abuse clause has moreover been added aimed at thwarting successive acquisitions – by virtue either of marital property law or of inheritance law – of the same property, within a twelve-month period each, by the same individual or such individual’s successor in title.
• The so-called sunset clause as per the Stamp Duty Land Tax (Differentiation) Bill has been scrapped, resulting in the first-time buyer’s exemption no longer automatically ceasing to apply from the first of January 2026 onwards

The Lower House has moreover carried a number of MP-proposed motions.

Dutch version: Pakket Belastingplan 2021 aangenomen door Tweede Kamer