Having a car in the Netherlands is expensive. Not only did you pay taxation on the import, you pay quarterly taxation on using the road. Gasoline is around 70% taxation, the other part are the genuine costs of petrol.
The road tax depends on the type of petrol you use and the type of engine in the car. The lesser CO2 is in the emission rates of the car, the lower is the road tax. If you use diesel or gas in the car, the road tax is substantially higher than if you use petrol. In the end it is a mathematical decision where you end up. In other words, if you have a high mileage per year, diesel could be the better choice as the lower costs at the gas station makes good the higher road tax amount.
Deregister car for road tax
If you have an old timer that is expensive for road tax, or you do not use the car for any reason, you could report that to the tax office and claim that the car is not on the public road. Then you do not need to pay the road tax for that period.
How not to cheat on deregistration for road tax?
A car trade company had in its stock of trade cars a van. All of trade cars are deregistered from road tax. Never the less the tax office registered on August 7, 2013 that the van in name of this car trade company was driving on the road. As no road tax was paid, the tax office assumes that the car should have received a road tax invoice for all months it was so called deregistered plus a penalty. In this case EUR 418 road tax assessment plus 100% penalty.
The car trade company made a complaint against this assessment as they have on register that the van was purchased with 220.000 km on the clock and when the van was sold on September 4, 2013 the clock showed again 220.000 km. Even though the court accepted this proof, maybe also in line with the low amount of tax being the issue, the high court disagreed. The high court could not believe any person would purchase a second hand car without making a test drive even once.
Maybe the fact that exactly this van was fined for speeding during the period this car trade company had the car on stock, and this speeding ticket was paid without any complaints, made the case the car was used on the road.
If you cheat, do not speed.
Tax office and auditing
The Dutch tax office is an organization where the majority of the employees are at an age that they will retire within about 3 to 4 years. Then on top of that the staff is to expensive, so persons will be dismissed. In order to be able to do the checking on simple aspects like road tax, camera’s are being used. You might have noticed a ‘Belastingdienst’ car on the road with a camera sometimes accompanied by two motorcycle assistance. Even thought you reduced your speed to prevent a speeding ticket, they were not there for speed, but for matters like road tax and outstanding tax assessments. So please pay and pay in time.
Orange Tax Services
We do not provide services in the field of road tax, you have to pay the road tax or sell the car. However, we are in the field of determining your fiscal residence. Should your fiscal residence be in the Netherlands and you drive a car with foreign license plates, you have a problem. The problem is that you should have converted those to Dutch plates, or have left the car in the country where you came from.
If your car is stopped, then the person driving the car regardless who that is, is to pay the tax on the car. We have jurisprudence on Belgium license plated car, driven by a Dutch tax resident who was a friend of the owner, the owner was also in the car when stopped, but the Dutch tax resident was due the tax on the car, even though the car was never imported, as the friend drove home to his house in Belgium with his car. In this case it as was a Porsche 911, so the amount of tax was substantial as well. This rigid this legislation is.
Would you like to learn more about your place of fiscal residence, do not hesitate to contact us.
