The Supreme Court of the Netherlands recently decided that the right to tenancy in respect of a dwelling featuring a workspace may qualify as a business asset where the tenant in question is using more than 10% of his or her (rented) accommodation for business purposes, in a ruling which in addition to affecting business owners is also going to have an impact on anyone collecting earnings from sundry operations (e.g. free-lance workers), although it should not pressure other business owners into rethinking the – definitive – choice they made earlier between business and private assets.
The State Secretary for Finance has referred to the consequences of the Supreme Court ruling as undesirable, and for this reason intends by means of a memorandum of amendment to the Tax Plan 2017 to bring the treatment of workspace forming part of rented accommodation into line with that forming part of owner-occupied accommodation, so as to ensure that the treatment meted out to business owners and collectors of earnings should end up the same irrespective of whether they are the tenant or the owner of the home they are living in. The proceeds of the measure are to go towards increasing the rate of tax deductibility of particular hybrid expenditure.
Dutch version: Reparatie aftrek kosten werkruimte in huurwoning