Arriving into the Netherlands or departing from the Netherlands makes you a migrant if this involves moving your central point of life.
The moment you arrive or depart, you have not been a Dutch tax resident for the full year. If you started or finished working in the year you migrated, then too much social premiums have been withheld in the wage tax collected by the employer. This can be retrieved by filling the migration income tax return.
Your employer has withheld too much social premiums as your employer cannot inquire about your private situation and cannot process such a change in your fiscal situation, hence the correct amount of wage tax has been collected by your employer, but in your case it was too much.
The Dutch tax office will regard you being a migrant when the mutation is recorded in the registration of city hall. Therefore it is very important you register yourself when you arrive, but maybe more important is to deregister when you leave AND provide the city hall with the correct new address you go to. The change of this registration makes it possible to file the migration income tax return, the return and the assessments are send to the address provided by you to city hall.
In the event you move abroad from one address to the other, then you need to inform the tax office yourself. We can assist in this matter while filing the migration income tax return.
The other country to where you moved could make inquiries about your Dutch taxable income for the calculation of their income tax. Please note that based on the tax treaties the other country cannot tax the income generated in the Netherlands while you were a Dutch resident tax payer. We recommend not to provide the income details.
Tax returns can be filed 5 years back. That implies that in 2013 you can still file the 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009 and 2008 income tax return. Should you have moved, please contact us, we calculate free or charge if you can have a refund. If yes, and the refund is more than our costs per tax return (EUR 370), then we suggest you to file. The filing can be done rather quick, but the processing by the tax office can take a number of months.
