Your address abroad plus the phrase keep in touch with the Dutch tax office could make you do the opposite, is that wise?
Your address abroad
If you have been a Dutch tax resident or a non resident tax payer, it is important the tax office knows about your movements. You might disagree and not to be too bothered by updating the Dutch tax office as you can do without those silly blue envelopes. This attitude can costs you more than you can anticipated.
Your address abroad – update if you move
We understand the Dutch tax office is not on your short list for Christmas cards, but it needs to be on your short list for when you send out new details of your new address as you have moved.
Your address abroad – court case
A Dutch tax resident Mr X moved to Germany in 2002 and deregistered with city hall. He did not provide city hall his new German address details. In the year 2011 the Dutch tax office send out invitations to file his 2008 to 2011 Dutch income tax return. During the period March 2011 to September 2012 the Dutch tax office send out reminders and other notifications. To none of these messages Mr X responded.
The tax office does not like it too much when you do not respond to their requests, but for situation like these they do have a solution. The Dutch tax office simply issues tax assessments for amounts they think the tax payer should pay them. These amounts are always higher and then the actual amount due, to trigger the tax payer to respond, file and comply with rules and regulations.
Mr X responded too late to all assessments, the tax office denied him to appeal the ex officio assessments, hence Mr X went to court. The court was quickly done with Mr X. Yes, the Dutch tax office needs to issue an assessment that meets all the criteria that has been set to issuing an assessment. However it is Mr X and only Mr X that can provide the Dutch tax office with his foreign address. And if Mr X moves to a different address in Germany, as he had done, it is not the task of the Dutch tax office to check with every county in Germany if maybe Mr X is living there. So Mr X had to pay the tax.
Your address abroad – court case – what really happened?
The above court case might be a bit strange to you. If you leave the Netherlands in 2002, how can you then be asked to file a 2008 to 2011 income tax return. And if Mr X has not responded all these years, how come he did now, in 2019?
The case does not provide any information of why tax was due. To us that can all be caused by one reason: a property in the Netherlands owned by Mr X. If you own a property in the Netherlands, you are due income tax over the difference between the so called WOZ value, value determined by the city, and the debt taken out to purchase the house.
For tax years 2008 to 2011 apparently the Dutch tax office actively asked him to file a Dutch tax return. As no foreign address details were provided to city hall, these invitations, reminders, ex officio assessments, fines, collecting fees were all send to the address the Dutch tax office does know, being the address of the Dutch property.
Still no response.
The next step of the Dutch tax office is to sell the property in order to settle the outstanding tax assessments. And then the notary needs to contact the owner, the notary was successful in locating Mr X and that is how Mr X started to respond, but way too late.
Orange Tax Services – tax is exciting
When you leave the Netherlands you need to deregister with city hall. Only City hall can update the Dutch tax office about this fact and only City Hall can provide your foreign address to the Dutch tax office .
The year you leave the Netherlands you most likely need to file a migration income tax return, we can do that for EUR 390 incl VAT by the way, hence providing an address is vital. If you are not sure of an address, use your parents address or that of your children, friends, family. The moment you move again abroad, you need to update the Dutch tax office (the foreign office in Heerlen) about your new address details.
You might not like receiving mail from the Dutch tax office, but as you have read in the court case, not receiving mail at all from the Dutch tax office is worse.
We love to receive those blue envelopes, so if you do not want to be bothered, send us a scan and we see what we can do for you to meet your obligations. Tax is exciting!
