Expats in the Netherlands fighting hard against retroactive tax changes

Expats in the Netherlands are taking their protest against the retroactive changes to the 30 per cent tax break to new heights.

Last month’s announcement by the Dutch government that the seven-year 30 per cent tax break for expat workers will be cut to five years caused outrage across the country’s expat communities. The retroactive nature of the move resulted in the formation of several protest groups, all of which believe introducing a five-year term for new expat entries to the country is fair, but totally disrupting the financial plans of established expat workers is as unfair as it can get. Many have mortgages and other financial commitments linked to the seven-year promise.

Originally calling themselves the International Professionals against Retroactive Ruling, one group has now re-christened itself as the ‘United Expats of the Netherlands’ or even ‘United Expats’. Whatever its name, the response has been overwhelming, with over 5,000 members registered since its start-up 20 days ago. Group administrator Engelbert Felberthann told the media it’s now an organised movement covering all the country, attracting even more members, organising events, creating a website and sending a video message to government stating its case.

Another group member, seeing lawsuits on the Netherlands’ admittedly flat horizon, has launched a gofundme page entitled ‘United Expats Fighting Fund’ which is trending nicely and uses the very relevant phrase ‘a deal is a deal’ to good effect. The campaign’s founders have promised any unused funds left after the issue is sorted will be donated to a Dutch charity supporting refugees, immigrants and expatriates in need. At the present time, the petition which was uploaded just after the bad news broke now has 22,000 signatures, more than double its original goal.